Where Were You?
by shygirl1
Summary: The lives of some of the X-series soldiers around the time of the '09 escape. Sort-of prequel to "Together." Completed!
1. Chapter 1: X6 405

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

Notes: I got this idea in my head last night. This fic is pretty much a prequel to my fic "Together" and it's gonna mostly be about a few of the original characters in that fic, as well as some of the other members of Max and Zack's family (original characters and established ones) and Alec, and their lives right before, including, and right after Max and Zack and their family escape Manticore in 2009. They'll be in this fic as well (though they won't be the absolute focus of it). And I will be referring to the transgenics that were already named in "Together" (like Becky and Jeff) by their designations in this fic, as this takes place years before they named themselves/were named. This fic will be told from first-person P.O.V. Enjoy!

X6-405's P.O.V.

Colonel Lydecker is not happy. I don't know if I should be happy that it's mostly Unit 3 that he's upset with and not us or if I should feel sorry for Unit 3 because he is angry at them. I think I feel both things.

"…explain these results? Ten out of the thirteen members of Unit 1 evaded all sixteen members of Unit 3. When we ran this exercise yesterday afternoon, only five members of Unit 3 evaded Unit 1. These are unacceptable numbers. Unit 1, you are dismissed for the day and are to return to your barracks. You will be debriefed on this exercise tomorrow morning. Unit 3, you will remain here and we will go over detail by detail your lack of success. Unit 1, dismissed."

"Sir, yes, sir!" we all yelled. We saluted him and then I turned and waited for the rest of my unit to fall into line and then I started to lead them back to our barracks.

"That was easiest escape and evade we've ever done," 773 said.

"That wasn't easy," 662 said. "I got caught! I failed the mission."

"But you're little," I said. "Don't worry. 058 and 887 also didn't complete the exercise."

"029 completed it and she's as little as I am," 662 said. "Does that mean that I'm not as good of a soldier as 029?"

"No, it doesn't mean that at all," I told her. "You're just as good a soldier as 029 is."

"029 got lucky," 115 said. "I saw it happen. 804 and 299 were moving in on her and 804 was going to make the 'kill,' but they got distracted when they saw 405 in the distance heading to the rendezvous point and they wanted to go for her and when they realized that 029 was getting away, it was too late for them to get her."

"I got away on my own," 029 insisted.

"You did," I said. "You did really well in the exercise."

"How much trouble do you think Unit 3 is going to be in for failing the escape and evade exercises?" 570 asked. "The colonel looked like he was really mad. Do you think he's going to throw all of them into solitary confinement?"

"No," I said. "He wouldn't do that just for not all of them performing up to his expectations on an exercise."

"Do you think they can really have an entire unit, even one of the smaller ones like us, in solitary at the same time?" 956 asked. "Is it big enough for ten or eleven or twelve or thirteen or twenty soldiers to be there at the same time? Has an entire unit ever been there at the same time before? I don't think one has? Has one?"

"Calm down, 956," I said. He really needs to not talk so much and not talk as fast as he does. I should be happy that he doesn't talk like that when we're in drills or in class or on training exercises. He is always so…this one word that I heard Commander Benson use when he was talking to Colonel Lydecker and he didn't realize that we were listening to him. I think it started with an e. Whatever it was, 956 shouldn't be so excitable…oh, that was the word that I was thinking of. "I think I heard that one of the X3 units was all put into solitary one time. I don't know if it really happened, though."

"It did," 367 said.

"It really did?" I said.

"Yeah," 367 said. "Remember the day last month when they pulled me out of that tactics class because they needed to do some blood tests? When the nurse was finished, the guard that took me to the infirmary told me that since it was so close to lunchtime, I could just go straight to the cafeteria. I got on the line for food and behind me I heard these X5s, it was 537 and 210 from Unit 2, talking about it. X3 Unit 1 went on a mission, a real mission, and they missed their target and Colonel Lydecker was so mad because it was a really important mission and he had them not only go into solitary for a month but before that...he had them all go to Psy Ops for a week!"

"Psy Ops is scary," 691 said.

"I don't believe you," 773 said. I hope they don't start an argument here in the middle of the hall. The guards might hear them and think that they're going to cause trouble for everybody and take them away to be punished, like they did with 284 and 269 from Unit 8 that one time.

"Okay," 367 said. "X5 Unit 2 is across the hall. You can ask 537 or 210 yourself."

I turned and saw them on the other side of the hall. I guess they were going back to their own barracks. A few of the girls in their unit giggled when they saw 773 blush and 144. 570, and 392 laugh at 773 as well. I glanced over and saw 599 try to calm his unit down and he looked at me sympathetically before he and his unit turned to go down another hallway. I knew I should do the same thing.

"Be quiet," I said. We reached our barracks and went inside and sat down on our bunks. "It's been a long day. We should get ready for lights out soon. 887, please try not to talk after lights out again. I don't care what kind of funny faces 570 and 773 make to you when the guards aren't at the door."

"But they were really funny. I couldn't help it," 887 said.

"887, what if it was Colonel Lydecker that had been standing outside of our door instead of just regular guards?" I pointed out to him.

"Yes, ma'am," 887 said. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

"It's okay," I said. I smiled. "Last one into the showers gets to clean the boots in the morning!" We all laughed and ran for the showers.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2: X5 369

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

Notes: If anybody hasn't read my fic "Together" and is wondering exactly who Wayne/X5-369 is, he's one of the original characters that I made up that were the other three X5's in Max and Zack's unit that made it out in the escape. The X5s in Max and Zack's unit will be the only transgenics that I will be referring to by their names in this fic when I write a part from one of their points-of-view. I hope it's not too confusing!

Wayne (X5-369)'s P.O.V.

"That was insane," Zane said to me as we got out of the shower after a rough training mission. "I can't believe that you pulled that stunt off."

"You could have done that," I said to him. I smirked. Zane was jealous and I knew it.

"I know," Zane said.

Zack glared at us. "What I can't believe is that you didn't get into trouble with the trainers for that move. That was too risky, Wayne."

"Hey, it helped us successfully complete the training mission," I said.

"Zack, he's right," Max said. "It did help us and Wayne didn't get caught. He knows how to be careful. If he didn't know how to be careful, he wouldn't have attempted that move in the first place. Right, Wayne?"

"Right, Maxie," I agreed. Am I glad that Colonel Lydecker decided to make Max our second-in-command last month! No offense to Tinga, she was actually a really good second-in-command, but Max is the only one in our family who can get Zack to listen to her and to get sense through to him on the first try.

Zack looked at me. "Just be more careful and let me know beforehand the next time you want to do that again."

"I will," I promised.

"That was pretty sweet," Ben said, grinning at not only using the slang that he'd overheard two of the guards said correctly, but also at the look on Zack's face.

I laughed. Good old Ben. Nobody brings out his devilish side better than our big brother. "It was. That was a nice drop that I got out of that tree. You saw how high it was, right, bro? It had to be about the high of a four story building! That was great. The look on Elle's face when I dropped in behind her…"

"Don't forget the same look of shock that Eva had," Krit said.

"I don't think I can forget that one that easily," Eva said. "You almost gave me a heart attack, Wayne!"

"Me too," Elle said indignantly.

"Oh come on, don't tell me that you wouldn't have done the same thing," I said. I thought about it. Okay, maybe Elle and Eva wouldn't have. That wasn't their style. "I know that Max and Jondy and Rena over there would have."

"Heck no," Jondy said. She sounded almost as angry as Eva did, but then she also smiled. "I would have picked a higher tree!"

"And I would pick a spot to hide your body," Tinga grumbled. "You're going to drive us all crazy one of these days."

"What about me?" Zane said. "You said the same thing about me yesterday."

"Oh, Maxie," Tinga said sweetly. "This is your job now, remember?"

"You're still older than I am," Max said. "When we're not out on duty, it's still your job."

"It's so nice to know the support that I have from my family," Tinga said. "I swear, one of these days I will get you before you know what's coming."

"Like you got me when your underwear mysteriously turned green last week?" Max said.

"You have an unfair advantage," Tinga said. "You almost never sleep."

"I sleep and that didn't stop me from--" Krit started to say.

Zack cut him off and I had to try really hard not to laugh. "—trying to get some sleep when it's lights out in a few minutes. We've got another very long day tomorrow. We start out with the usual, but then immediately after lunch we're going to be sparring against an X6 unit."

"X6s? Why do we have to spar against them?" I whined. "We're going to kill them! I heard that they're not as good as us."

"Remember what Colonel Lydecker always tells us," Zack said. I could see the look of disgust in his face. Zack, and the rest of us, hates it so much whenever something that Colonel Lydecker says actually turns out of be right. "Never underestimate your enemy. If it makes you feel any better, we're going to go against one of the top X6 units, Unit 1."

"I think it will be fun," Jack said as he climbed into his bunk.

Zack actually smiled at Jack as he walked over to him. "Feeling better today, little brother?"

"Yeah, I'm feeling much better today," Jack said. "I haven't had any seizures for the past two days."

"Keep it going, buddy," Reese said.

"I'll try my best," Jack said. "Those seizures are scary."

"I hate them," Brin said. "I hate watching one of us have one and I hate having one myself."

"Maybe one of the doctors will fix them someday," Eva offered. She shook her head. "Yeah, right. Like they'd care about us enough to fix these seizures."

"I don't want to think about them," Max said.

I looked up at the clock on the wall. It was getting pretty close to lights out. "We should be getting into bed now. It's going to be time for lights out in a minute or two."

"He's right," Zack said.

We all climbed into bed and pulled up the covers and sure enough, a guard stopped just outside our door and watched us as the lights in the barracks went out. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he looked at us for a few moments more to make sure that we were asleep before he walked away. I sighed and sat up in my bunk. Everybody else, except for Jack, Brin, Elle, and Parker who actually did fall asleep, also sat up. "Who here that had advanced tactics with Commander Benson this afternoon actually believed a word that he said?"

"You didn't believe a word he said because you weren't paying attention to him. You were trying to find a way to distract Krit," Rena said.

"I was trying to think of a way to distract Krit but I was also paying attention to the commander," I said.

"Prove it," Syl said. "What was the first thing that he said to us in the class today?"

"That's easy," I said. "When the enemy…"

"Guards. Get down," Zack hissed. In a heartbeat, we all lay back down on our bunks and closed our eyes. A moment or two later, I heard a guard pass by a pause at our door before he moved on. We waited a few more moments before we sat back up again. "Don't be so loud. How many times have I told you not to be so loud after lights out?"

"Relax, big brother," Krit said. "We know what we're doing."

"That's what you said every time…" Zack said. "Why do I have to go through this night after night?"

"Because…hey, Krit, do you know why?" I asked.

"Not a clue," Krit said. "Zane, got any ideas?"

"I don't know either," Zane said. "I think Zack might be nuts, though."

Zack sighed. "I think you've got that in reverse, Zane."

I grinned and lay back on my bunk and closed my eyes. Nothing makes you feel better after a typical Manticore hell day than being with your family and teasing your oldest brother.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3: X5 164

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

Notes: Alec will be referred to by his designation in this fic since he wasn't named until season 2. There also won't be too much of Alec's P.O.V. pre-escape because all of the serious drama leading up to the escape happens in Gillette. Don't worry, he will be appearing later.

Elle (X5-164)'s P.O.V.

"164 to 452, no sign of any of the members of Team A yet," I said quietly into my walkie-talkie. I knew perfectly well that Lydecker would be monitoring any and all of the transmissions we made with them, so I was definitely not going to be using names. I looked over to where Zane was perched in a tree, keeping a look out for any of the members of the other team. He shook his head again.

"Continue keeping watch with 205, 369, and 417," Max ordered. "656, have you, 766, or 987 spotted any of Team A's members yet?"

"No sign of them, 452," Tinga reported. "The flag remains secure."

"I copy," Max said. "Report in if you see anything. 452 out."

"Why do we have to be defense?" Wayne muttered from his spot. "I hate staying back."

"That's probably why Max assigned you to this group," Zane said. "I'm sure that you could have asked her if you could have switched with Tinga, Eva, or Kenny and stayed back with the flag if you really wanted to."

"Shut up. They'll hear us if they're nearby, which they probably are," I said. "We've got to stay alert. How much do you want to bet that Zack is probably two feet from us and listening in to every word we're saying?"

"She's right," Wayne said.

"More often than you are," Zane said.

"I guess we know who's going to be the ones who will explain to Colonel Lydecker why our team lost Capture the Flag today," Jack remarked.

I had to try really hard not to laugh out loud. "I guess so." I suddenly heard a thump in the near distance and turned in that direction. I motioned for Wayne to come with me and I grabbed my walkie-talkie. "164 to 452, noises were heard in the area. I'm taking 369 with me to investigate them. Do I have your clearance to proceed?"

"Proceed," Max said.

"164 out," I said. Wayne and I carefully crept in the direction that the thump had come from. Only a moment later, we heard Zack's and Ben's voices.

"Try to hold her still," Zack's voice said.

"I'm trying. This is a bad one," Ben said. He sounded really worried.

Wayne and I looked at each other and bolted in that direction. Sure enough, we came upon Zack and Ben sitting on the ground next to Gale, who was having a nasty seizure. "Oh, no," Wayne said. He sat down next to Ben. "Gale, you're going to be okay."

"It came out of nowhere," Zack said. "I never saw Gale getting shaky at all earlier today."

I shook my head and took out my walkie-talkie again. "164 to 452, it turned out to be a gust of wind blowing some branches down."

"I copy," Max said. She knew that was one of our codes for one of us having a seizure when training and she sounded really worried. "You and 369 are to get back to 205 and 417 and resume your original assignments."

"I copy. 164 out," I said. I put it back away and looked down at Gale. "This is almost as bad as the seizure that Jack had last week. It's going to stop, won't it, Zack?"

"It better," Zack said.

"I—it w—ill," Gale managed to stutter.

"Don't talk, Gale," Ben said. "Just stay calm. It'll pass. The Blue Lady will be watching out for you, you'll see. She's been there for all of us and she knows how much you mean to everybody. There's no way that she won't protect you." He saw Zack gesturing to him and nodded and quickly made his own coded walkie-talkie transmission to the rest of his team to let them know what had happened.

"It will pass," I said. I grabbed Gale's hand and felt it shaking badly. "She's getting worse, Zack."

"We need to get her out of the snow entirely," Zack said. He and Ben and Wayne and I looked around and we spotted some thick loose branches on the ground fairly close to us. Ben and I got up and quickly gathered the branches and piled and laid them out so that Gale could lie on them. Zack and Wayne carefully moved Gale onto the pile of branches.

"Th—ank y—y—ou," Gale stuttered. "I'm sc—scared. I'm r—real—ly scared."

"Just be quiet and rest and wait for the seizures to be over," Zack said. "We're here." Gale tried to nod but couldn't and closed her eyes and her seizures became even worse.

"Zack, what's wrong?" I asked. I was scared as hell that Gale was going to die. I didn't want to lose my younger sister. "Why won't these seizures stop?!"

"I don't know," Zack said. "Wayne, can you do anything?"

Wayne shook his head. "I know barely more about these seizures as I figure the doctors and lab technicians do. I don't have a clue how to stop them. The only thing I can think of is to keep Gale calm and comfortable and hope that they'll stop on their own."

"Please protect Gale, Blue Lady," Ben prayed quietly. "Please let her be okay. Please don't let anything happen to her."

"Be okay, Gale, be okay," Zack said. Then, miraculously, Gale's seizures started to slow down. After another few minutes, they stopped.

Gale opened her eyes and stared up at us. "That was so bad," she said.

"Don't try anything too fast," Wayne said. He and Zack helped Gale sit up. "How do you feel?"

"Like I just participated in a five-on-one sparring session and I was on the short end," Gale said. "I've got a nasty headache."

"I'm glad that's all you've got," I said gratefully. I gave Gale a hug and then took my walkie-talkie back out. "164 to 452, the wind stopped gusting. Our hearing is no longer obscured."

"That's good, 164," Max said. She sounded as relieved as the five of us. "Continue keeping an eye out with your group. 452 out."

"This was too close," I said. "That was the worst seizure any of us have had so far."

"I know," Zack said. "I wish there was something that we could do about them. The most we can do is continue to cover for each other when we need to and not say a word of this to Colonel Lydecker. Never say a word of this to Colonel Lydecker."

"You know we will," I said seriously. "We'd better get back to Jack and Zane. Let's go, Wayne." I gave Gale another hug. "Stay all right."

"I will," Gale promised. "Don't worry. That won't happen again."

TBC


	4. Chapter 4: X6 773

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

X6-773's P.O.V.

"Excellent marksmanship, 773," the trainer said. "99.85 percent accuracy. Well above the target score."

"Thank you, sir," I said proudly.

"Take a seat on the bench with the rest of your unit," the trainer said. "367, you're next. Select a weapon from the rack on my left and walk to the line. You may begin on my whistle."

"I've got the highest score so far, right?" I said to my unit mates when I sat down on the bench. "What did 570 get, 99.67 percent?"

"99.68," 405 corrected. "Everybody's been above the target score so far today. 029, 662, and 058 just got by it, but they did get to it. They did pretty good considering that they're still so little they can barely hold a gun, much less as well as they can."

"Don't be such a show off, 773," 392 said.

"I won't as long as you promise not to brag so much about beating your personal best and that you're going to beat my score and then not do it," I said. I grinned. 392 always tries to show off and annoy me but I can always annoy her right back, usually worse than she tries to do to me. "You didn't beat my score. You were more than a full point behind me."

"I still beat my personal best," 392 insisted. "It used to be a 98 even and I got 98.55 today. And you didn't beat my as badly as you did the last time. You were almost two points better than me the last time we ran this. The difference wasn't even a point-and-a-half today. I'm going to beat your score one day very soon at this rate."

"You two really do need to be quiet," 405 said. She was somehow paying full attention to my conversation with 392 as well as what our other unit mates were doing while at the same time looking over the trainer's shoulder at the monitor that he was watching to monitor our progress. I really wish I knew how she could manage to do so many things at once. I can multi-task, as Colonel Lydecker referred to it, okay, but 405 can do it so much better. I don't know how her and 115 and 691 can do it so well. "We've got another group training mission after dinner. I know how much you all don't like it when we have training missions and escape and evade and exercises like that as the last activity of the day, but Colonel Lydecker is the one who makes up the daily schedule and we all have to abide by it. We can't complain about it."

"You mean we can't complain about it to the colonel's face," I said. I grinned and almost started to laugh when I saw 405 make a face at me.

"I hate it when you're right," she said. She suddenly jumped a little in her seat and turned towards the area of the range where we were using on our target practice runs. 115 looked in that direction a split second later and then the rest of us heard it. It sounded like 367 limping back towards us. The trainer in charge was looking at the monitor and shaking his head. He marched the few feet up to where 367 was and grabbed her arm and spun her so that she was facing him.

"X6-367, would you care to explain to me and to your unit how when you were taking a shot at the target which was located fifty feet above your head in the tree that you somehow shot yourself in the foot? It was quite clearly explained to all thirteen of you little maggots that you are to check to make sure that your weapon was in proper working order before you made your run at the course!"

"Sir, I did check my weapon properly, sir!" 367 said. I looked down at her right foot. That has to be hurting so much! I'm impressed that she isn't almost crying. "It was my mistake, sir. I was standing too close to the tree when I took the shot and so the bullet had more velocity than it should have had and so it ricocheted off of the tree and it hit my foot, sir!"

"Really, 367?" the trainer said. He looked like he didn't believe her. I'm not really that surprised. There are some trainers here who never believe anything that we have to say. They don't even believe the C.O.s when they're talking!

"Sir, she is telling the truth, sir!" 405 yelled.

The trainer turned around to face her. "How would you know that, 405? Were you looking over my shoulder at the monitor? You know that is against the rules, soldier!"

"It was unintentional, sir," 405 lied. "You had moved to the side of the monitor just long enough for me to have a clear view of it from where I had been sitting and that was the moment when 367's injury occurred, sir." Nice lie. 405 definitely knows how to cover her tracks. That was a completely plausible excuse and the trainer also knows it. Unfortunately, this particular trainer doesn't like 405 too much. I know that 405 doesn't like him very much if at all since he was the trainer who was in charge when our unit mate 607 drowned when we were training in the tank two-and-a-half months ago.

He looked pretty annoyed. "That is most likely the truth. You better not be lying to me soldier."

"I am not lying, sir," 405 insisted.

"Good," the trainer said. "I've had my eye on you since you had the audacity to run your mouth at me since that little episode in underwater training at the end of December. I'm warning you, 405. I have no hesitations to send you to punishment detail if I find out that you are lying to me. Maybe a day trip to Psy Ops will make you come around."

Whoa, 405 looks angry. She doesn't like to show too much negative or what the colonel would call weak emotion around us. You really need to get her angrier than Colonel Lydecker after a failed mission for her to show it. This trainer definitely did that. I guess I can understand that. He was the one who'd refused to let 607 out of the tank early when 405 saw him struggle. I know that the rules are the rules, but 607 was trying so hard! They could have made an exception for him that once.

"Sir, I swear to you again that I am not lying to you and I promise to be on my best behavior, sir," she said. She looked like she was trying to fire hollow point bullets our of her eyes and into the trainer's head.

"Good. I knew that there's a reason that you are commanding officer of your unit," the trainer said. "773, escort your unit mate to the infirmary and then report back here. 115, get ready. After 115 completes his run, it will be 405's turn and then we will wait for 773 to return before we begin our debriefing."

"Sir, yes, sir!" we said. I saluted the trainer and then put and arm around 367's shoulders and helped her walk over to the infirmary.

"You're lucky you weren't using a gun loaded with hollow points or half of your foot would be blown off," I said.

"I know that," 367 said.

"That would have been interesting to see," I said gleefully. "We'd see the bones sticking out and muscle hanging out in shreds and the shredded blood vessels and all of the blood…"

"You're weird," 367 said. She shook her head and sighed. "Why does that trainer hate 405 more than the rest of us? He always singles her out even when she doesn't say anything like how she spoke up for me just now. It's been like that ever since 607 drowned, you know?"

"I overheard her saying to 115 that she was asking the trainer why they didn't release 607 early when she saw him having trouble," I said. "She is our commanding officer so she does have a right to know that kind of thing but the trainer just said that he was going by the rules, even though 607 obviously wasn't slacking off."

"The trainer was right," 367 said. "I know that we all liked 607 and all of that, but the trainer was right and we have to follow the rules all the time. That's one of the biggest things that make good soldiers, the ability to follow orders. 607 might have died, but he did follow orders."

"I don't know…" I said. I don't think that 405 knows, either. I just get that feeling about her sometimes.

"Do you want to be as good as soldier as X5 Unit 2? They follow orders and look at them!" 367 said. "Everybody idolizes them, including 405."

"I know," I said. I smiled at her. "Try not to slip on your own blood."

"I hate you," 367 said. My smile just got bigger.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5: X5 205

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

Notes: Spoilers/spoiler-ish stuff for various season 1 episodes (I forget exactly which one(s)).

Zane (X5-205)'s P.O.V.

"Is everybody ready?" Zack asked as we marched towards the gym.

"Yes, sir," we all said in unison.

"I don't know why we have to meet in the gym for our debriefing," Syl complained.

I snorted. "The trainer probably doesn't want to be out in that stupid cold weather for more than he absolutely has to. He's probably lazier than Krit is in the mornings."

"I am not lazy…at least not as much as you claim that I am," Krit insisted.

"Give me a break," Wayne said. "It took me, Ben, and Zack to drag your butt out of your bunk yesterday morning so that you and the rest of us wouldn't be late for live ordinance training. 'Five more minutes, you guys. I didn't get a good night's sleep last night.'"

"Which was a big lie because you slept like a baby from lights out until the crack of dawn," Jondy said.

"I was the one who didn't get a good night's sleep last night because I am the lucky one who has the bunk next to you on your left and when you snored you sounded like a goose that got caught in a jet engine," Jace said.

"Jace, that's really disgusting," Tinga said.

"Well, his snoring was disgusting and it kept me up that night," Jace said. "I think I only got about twenty minutes total of sleep that night because of him."

"You could always go request some earplugs from somebody," Eva suggested.

"And have them drag my butt to the infirmary for the doctors to do some kind of nasal surgery when Jace tells them why she needs earplugs? I'll bet you anything that it'll either be that or them throwing Jace into the infirmary for some testing or surgery to see if she has some kind of hearing problem," Krit said. "They've been stricter with us lately. If the guards or trainers or Colonel Lydecker sees one of us or hears about one of us having a problem, the unlucky one gets tested to within an inch of his or her life. Don't tell me that they do this all of the time. I'm not an idiot. I was born here and I've lived here all of my life so far just like the rest of you and I've been experimented on like a lab rat like all of you have and I hate it as much as any of you, but I know that I can't be the only one here that's noticed that some of us soldiers have been taken away for testing a lot more frequently lately." Krit looked upset. "You guys remember 738 from Unit 3? She was injured in a training exercise that she participated in with her unit and they took her to the infirmary to be treated for her injuries and she never came back. Unit 3 never found out exactly what happened to her. The only thing that their commanding officer was told was that 738 was dead. He wasn't given a reason. 738 didn't even have a fatal injury when she was brought to the infirmary."

"Lydecker wouldn't dare to do that to one of us," Max said. "He practically loves us."

"He loves us?" I said skeptically.

"You know what I meant, Zane," Max said. "He treats us like hell, but compared to how he is with some of the other units, he treats us like we're teachers' pets." She frowned. "That's actually a really bad analogy considering who we are."

"I personally have had as much as I can take from Lydecker," Jack said.

"We all have," Zack said as we entered the gym. "I know that we were created and are being raised to be soldiers, but ordinary soldiers aren't trained or treated like us. They're given a choice. They're given free will. Their commanding officers give them a choice about whether or not they want to participate in medical testing. They can choose whether or not they even want to become soldiers. Being a soldier might be all that we have known, it might be who we are, it might even be literally written into our DNA and considering Lydecker I wouldn't be surprised at all if that's the case, but we do not have to take this. Nobody should have to put up with the physical and psychological torture. Nobody should be looked upon and treated by other people as if they were animals and not people. Nobody should be looked at and treated like lab rats whose sole purpose is to be experimented on. We're humans, too. We might have some feline and maybe even other animals' DNA in us, but we are definitely human. Nobody can tell us otherwise. We have emotions. We laugh, we cry, we get angry, we get sad, we get happy. The most important thing is that we have free will. Lydecker and the trainers and those bastards in Psy Ops want us to forget that, but they can't do that. We can choose our own destiny. We can choose what we want to do." Zack's eyes had never been so serious before. "We need to take control of our lives. We should get out of Manticore."

"To what? What's on the outside?" Jace asked.

"Everything," Zack said.

I looked at Zack. I have never been as proud of my oldest brother as I do right now. He had never been more right. "There's no way we're going to stay here forever," I said. "There's no way that I'm staying here forever. If and when you want to leave, I'm there. Count me in."

"Me too," Max said. "There's no doubt about it. You're not going anywhere without me."

"Me too," Ben said.

"Me too," Jack said.

Zack nodded as more of us agreed. Jace, Parker, Syl, and Tinga looked a little hesitant and he noticed it. "I don't blame you if you're not certain about this. I just want you to trust me."

"It'll have to wait," Parker said as we all looked towards the gym door. "I hear the trainer coming."

"Fall in line," Zack ordered and we formed one neat line. The trained nodded approvingly and began to pace in front of us.

"Group A was able to slip past Group B to get to its target," the trainer said. "987, you were the leader of Group A. What did you and your group do to get past Group B?"

"We did reconnaissance first, sir," Kenny said. "537, 210, 417, and I spread ourselves out in the area where we spotted Group B and got ourselves positioned for optimal surveillance, sir."

"First rule in the book, excellent," the trainer said. "Group B had one more member than your group. How were you able to overcome this deficit?"

"It was easy, sir. We know 766, 369, 157, 798, and 493 very well. We know their strengths and more importantly for our mission, we know what their weaknesses are. Out of that group of five, we knew that 493 was the strongest at hand-to-hand and his accuracy with weapons is among the best in the unit, so we wanted to draw him away from his group so that we could…" Kenny stopped suddenly and turned his head in the direction of the thump that had distracted him. I did the same thing and I felt heart jump into my throat. Jack had fallen to the floor and was having a seizure.

"As you were, soldiers," the trainer said calmly. He motioned to two of the three guards that had accompanied him and they dragged Jack off out the door. Max and Jondy and Rena and I turned to look and the trainer caught us. "Eyes front!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" we yelled. I looked out of the corner of my eye next to me and saw Max discretely make a hand gesture to Zack. _I'll follow them._ Zack barely nodded and we focused our attention back on the trainer. Well, we pretended to focus our attention back on the trainer. All I could think about was Jack. He was the second youngest boy in our unit and he was definitely the most fragile physically. We were all protective of him, even Eva, Jondy, Krit, and Max, who were all younger than Jack. Jack was the calmest one. If Zack was a mountain, solid and unmovable and strong, then Jack was the quiet lake at the mountain's foot. Jack was the only one in our unit that everybody could honestly say that they were never mad at him at one point or another. We just loved him. He was our baby brother and they were dragging him away. We had to see him again. He had to be okay. He was going to be treated for the seizure and he was going to be returned to us as good as new. There wasn't any question. There couldn't be.

"All right, soldiers," the trainer said. He looked at his watch and sighed. "You lucky little maggots got to finish early and you've got a full hour of rec time until lights out. Report back to your barracks and spend that time there. You're dismissed."

"Sir, yes, sir!" we yelled again. We turned around and marched out of the gym. Once we were out of sight of the trainer and the remaining guard, Max gave Zack another signal and slipped down a hallway while Zack continued to lead us back to our barracks. We quietly entered them and got ourselves ready for lights out. Most of us sat down on our bunks. Ben stood against the wall near the window and Zack paced back and forth near the door.

"How long do you think it will take Max to find out what's going on with Jack?" Reese asked.

"It shouldn't take long," Zack said. "But I guess it depends on what they are doing to Jack. Hopefully, he's just being taken to be treated and he'll be fine."

"He's got to be fine," Gale said. "If I got through that seizure that I had last week, then Jack can get through this one."

"Jack won't let anything stop him from getting out of this place," Rena said. "You saw the look in his eyes when Zack was talking and mentioned leaving Manticore. He wants to do it and he wants to escape with all of us. He's going to get better and we're all going to escape together."

"I really don't know if escaping is such a good idea," Syl said. "I do trust you with my life, Zack, but what if the outside turns out to be as bad as or even worse than here at Manticore? What will we do then?"

"The outside has to be better than Manticore," Zack said. "This is the bottom of the barrel. It can't get any worse than this place."

"Even if we go through with this and we get out, we'll be hunted down for the rest of our lives," Parker said. "You all know how Lydecker thinks. When he gets angry or when he does something that he believes is wrong, he doesn't stop for anything until he fixes the situation. We're going to make for one big situation if we decide to leave."

"So what? I think that goes without saying," I said. "At least we'd be in control of our lives. We'd know how to evade Lydecker. We can and have evaded other units of X5s in our training. Evading normal soldiers won't be as difficult as evading X5s. I think that the pros outweigh the cons by a long shot. A life on the run is better than a life in this place."

"What if they send other X5s after us?" Jace asked.

"They'd have to know where we are," Zack said. "I don't plan on letting Lydecker find out where I am if I escape."

"Besides, not even two-thirds of the X5s are qualified to go on even group missions right now," Elle said. "X3s and X4s can't catch us. They've got to send out normal soldiers after us if they find us. I don't know how well you guys were paying attention in class, but I know that I was and I know that I learned my lessons very well. I'm all up for giving them a practical demonstration of my lessons. How about you?"

"That sounds sweet," Wayne said. He grinned. "I love the idea of throwing their own lessons and Colonel Lydecker's words and actions back in their faces. Heck, that reason alone is enough to make me get out!"

Some of us laughed. We definitely needed that. "It's enough reason for a lot of us," Rena said. "Seriously, I'm ready, willing, and able to leave if and when we decide definitely that we're going to do this."

"I'm still not entirely sure that I want to do this," Tinga admitted. "This is a really big decision, Zack."

"I know," Zack admitted. "This is the biggest decision that I've ever had to make so far."

"If Lydecker gets even the slightest hint about what we've been talking about, we are going to be in trouble beyond trouble," Ben warned. "We better hope that the Blue Lady protects us from Lydecker's wrath."

"That sounds a little dramatic, Ben," Eva said.

"It's true, though," Ben pointed out.

"He's right," Zack said.

"How long has it been since our debriefing finished and Max went off to follow the guards who took Jack away?" Brin asked.

"It's been at least ten minutes," Zack said. "She should be back soon."

We just sat around and waited quietly. Rena walked over to my bunk and sat down next to me. "I'm scared, Zane."

"I'm scared too, Rena," I admitted. "I don't want to think about the possibility of Jack not being okay."

"I know. Neither do I," Rena said.

Things remained pretty quiet after that. There wasn't much noise, other than Zack's pacing and the ticking of the clock on the wall and Jondy chewing on what little fingernails she had. It was the weirdest feeling, like we were in suspended animation. The silence was finally broken by the sound of the door opening. We all turned to it and saw Max coming back inside the barracks. I took one look at her face and I felt my heart sink. Jack was dead. He had to be.

"It was—Zack, they did—" Poor Max couldn't even finish her sentence before she started to cry. Zack put an arm around her and Tinga, our resident mother hen, went up to Max and gave her a hug and we waited for Max to stop crying.

"What happened, Maxie?" Zack asked softly once Max had stopped crying enough to be coherent. "What happened to Jack?"

"They took him to the infirmary," Max said. "He was starting to come out of it and regain full consciousness. He was going to be okay and I thought that everything was going to be fine. Lydecker was there and I saw one of the guards that had brought Jack to the infirmary speak to him and then Lydecker spoke to the doctors and then he stood there in the operating room and they put Jack on the table and I thought they were going to give him some kind of treatment like maybe they actually found a way to fix the seizures now. They didn't give him any kind of treatment. They cut him open. They didn't cut him open like they were performing some kind of surgery to help him, they cut him open like they were performing an autopsy. Jack was still alive when they cut him open! They cut open his head and they started poking around in there and slicing his brain like it was the meat they serve to us in the cafeteria at lunch on Tuesdays. They killed our brother! The worst part was that Lydecker was just standing there watching them and he didn't say a word. He must have given them the order to slice Jack up like he was nothing. He let them kill Jack for no reason at all. It was so horrible."

I was speechless. I knew that Lydecker was capable of and I've seen him do some nasty things, but to have our brother autopsied when he was still alive? How could anybody do that?

Zack gritted his teeth and gave Max's shoulder one last squeeze before he resumed his pacing. He stopped suddenly and turned to face us. "That's it. We're going. We're not spending any more time in this place than we absolutely have to. Jace, Syl, Parker, Tinga, are you guys in now?"

"Absolutely," Tinga said. "There's no question anymore."

"Count me in," Syl said. "All the way."

"I'm going," Parker said. "I want out of Manticore."

Jace still looked really nervous. "I'll go with you."

"Excellent," Zack said. He looked around at all of us. "We'll leave at the first opportunity that we get, but no further than a week from now. By this time next week, we'll be free from here."

TBC


	6. Chapter 6: X5 494

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

X5-494's P.O.V.

"I heard a rumor that Colonel Lydecker from the Wyoming facility is going to be arriving here sometime this afternoon to watch the X5's," 107 said.

"No, he's scheduled to get here next week," I said. "That's what I've heard."

"You need to get your hearing checked," 107 insisted. "I know I heard that correctly."

"Who did you hear it from?" 511 asked.

"642 from Unit 4," 107 said. "Where did you hear it from, 494?"

"I heard it from Director Marshall himself when I was standing outside of his office door when I was called there a few days ago," I said. I grinned and turned to look over at my commanding officer. "You were there with me, 908. Remember?"

908 shrugged. "I know. So what? Colonel Lydecker has visited this facility before. So has Director Warren from the New York facility and Director Marshall has visited Wyoming and New York before. It happens all of the time." She turned back to her lunch tray and ignored the rest of us.

"She's almost as annoying as Director Marshall sometimes," 121 said. "No wonder I heard that Director Marshall might have you replace her as our C.O. as soon as the end of the year."

I was a little surprised. "Are you serious, 121?"

"Absolutely," 121 said. "You know that you're better than she is. Half of the unit is better than 908. I have no idea why they haven't replaced her as C.O. yet."

"Maybe Director Marshall is a little slow," 511 said. "Maybe that's why he's leaving at the end of the year." He grinned at me. "I can't wait until they bump you up from second-in-command. I can get away with anything."

"You get away with anything now," 121 said.

"You better start working harder," I told 511. "I'm going to want you to be my second-in-command."

"You can't choose your second-in-command," 908 said. "I certainly didn't choose you."

"Hurts to know that you're not the best, doesn't it?" I said cheerfully. Name one person in our unit who actually likes 908. "If you need any help, you can always ask me for it."

"Please let them transfer one of us from this unit," 908 mumbled.

"She needs to learn how to loosen up," 121 said. "She's wound so tight, even for a soldier."

"So, is Colonel Lydecker going to be observing just the X5s or he is going to be observing other soldiers as well?" 786 asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I think that it's going to be mainly the X5s, though he probably will take a look at everybody else."

"He likes to look at our unit especially," 563 said. "And he always seems to favor 494 and 121 when he does. Why does Colonel Lydecker seem to like you guys so much?"

"I have no idea," I said. "I don't really like him too much, but I don't think that anybody, whether they're soldiers or civilians, like their authority figures."

"He makes my skin crawl," 121 said.

"Who do you guys think would win in a fight? Colonel Lydecker or Director Marshall?" 511 asked.

"You need to grow up," 908 said.

"You need to get a life," I muttered just loud enough for 511 and 121, who were sitting on either side of me, to hear but not loud enough for 908 to hear. I turned to 908 and gave her a grin. "Relax, 908, it's just harmless speculation. 511 is just voicing a thought that's most likely on the minds of any of us here who have had some form of contact with Colonel Lydecker. I'm willing to bet that even you have thought of that. Have you, 908?"

"Occasionally," 908 admitted. "I guess that it is a somewhat logical or natural thought to have considering the people involved."

"Who do you think would win?" 511 repeated.

"As they are now or if they're both in their prime?" 237 asked. "Colonel Lydecker's not far past his prime, but Director Marshall has to be at least fifteen years farther from his prime than Colonel Lydecker."

"I don't know. I guess if they were both in their prime," 511 said.

"Colonel Lydecker," 237 said. "He's scarier than Director Marshall is."

"I'll agree with that," 121 said. "Director Marshall only scares me sometimes. There's something about Colonel Lydecker that absolutely scares the living daylights out of me when I look at him. I really feel sorry for the soldiers at the facility over in Wyoming."

"Me too," I said. "I'd definitely go with Colonel Lydecker. What do you think, 908?"

"I'd call it a draw," 908 said. "And can you please be a little quieter? I am trying to come up with a strategy for our training mission against Unit 7 later this afternoon. You should be doing the same thing, 494. You need to be living up to your responsibilities."

"First, we don't know what the exact scenario is going to be," I said. "Second, I always have a million plans in my head that I can use for a situation. Third, I've never let us down in a training mission before. You know that you can count on me when you need it."

"I know, I know," 908 said. "You need to tone down the attitude a little, 494. You don't have to act like you rule the world."

"I never said that I ruled the world," I said. "I might be practically invincible, but I don't rule the world." A bunch of my unit mates laughed.

"You're not even practically invincible," 908 said. "I swear you're going to find that out one of these days."

"Hopefully not for a long time," I said.

TBC

Notes: Thanks, babe, for the review! The next part will probably not be posted for a few days because it's going to be a long one, but it will be worth the wait!


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

Notes: This chapter will jump back-and-forth between different characters' points-of-view. Also, more spoilers and spoiler-ish stuff for the pilot and any other episode that has flashbacks to the major event that will occur in this chapter.

Rena (X5-120)'s P.O.V.

We've been on edge for about twenty-four hours, ever since Jack's seizure and death. I don't think any of us had an easy time getting to and staying asleep, not counting Max and Jondy. I must have only gotten about two or three hours worth of sleep last night all together. I'm so nervous. Six days or less and we'll be out of Manticore one way or another. There's no question about it, they're not going to recapture me when we get out of here. No way.

We're absolutely quiet as we march back to our barracks after another long day. Colonel Lydecker and the trainers practically ran us into the ground again. We went inside and showered and got ready for bed. It was pretty eerie. Normally Krit and Wayne would be going back and forth and would manage to draw Zane in or Max and Jondy and I would be driving Tinga crazy or Ben would be telling us a story or the boys, well, except for Zack, would all team up to try to scare Elle somehow or just something to relax as much as we could without getting into trouble.

"I hate waiting," Gale said. "I want to get everything over with."

"This one nurse told me when I was really little before she had to take some blood that anticipating it is much worse than going through it," Ben said. "The same thing has to apply to this situation."

"I want to get it over with so badly," Jace said. She looked even more nervous and jittery than she had yesterday.

"I think that it's safe for us to say that we all share that sentiment," Zack said.

* * *

X6-115's P.O.V.

"Um, 405, I have to go to the bathroom," 144 said.

405 managed to suppress a sigh. "Next time don't steal 887's juice from him at dinner and drink it. You can't go to the bathroom now because we only have a few minutes to lights out and if you're not back by the time the guards patrol our hallway, you're going to be in major trouble."

"No, I won't," 144 said. "367 was caught out of her bed at lights out because she went to the bathroom three nights ago and she didn't get into any trouble."

"That's because 367 rarely sleeps," I said. "Colonel Lydecker knows about her sleeping patterns and let the guards know and she's allowed to wander around the barracks at night if she needs to as long as she doesn't make much noise and as long as she's not out of her bunk for too long of a stretch."

"So there," 367 said.

"Behave," 405 and I said in unison.

"But I have to go," 144 whined.

"Can you hold it in for at least fifteen minutes longer?" 405 asked. "You can use the bathroom then. I'll cover for you if it comes to that."

144 smiled. "Thank you, 405."

"That's got to be a relief," 773 said. "Or it will be when you relieve yourself." He laughed.

"A relieve relief," I said. "Do you think that it would be relieve relief, 773, or relief relief?"

"I think it would be the second one," 773 said.

"I think that you two will be involuntarily relieving yourselves if you don't quiet down soon," 405 said.

"Yes, ma'am," we said, laughing.

"I hope it doesn't snow tomorrow," 058 said. "I hate running the obstacle course when it's snowing."

"You only run the baby course," I said. "It's not that hard. You can do it easily even in the snow."

"Yeah, just wait until you're four and they start making you run the regular obstacle course," 691 said.

"I bet that they still won't let 392 run the regular obstacle course even after she turns four," 773 said.

"Oh yeah?" 392 said.

"That's enough," 405 said. "No fighting. Let's all just get into our bunks and wait for lights out."

"Do you think that it'll snow tonight, though?" I asked 405 as I got into my bunk.

She looked out the window for a few moments before she shook her head. "No. I don't think anything will happen tonight."

* * *

Parker (X5-537)'s P.O.V.

I sat down on the edge of my bunk and fidgeted. I'm almost as bad as Krit sometimes when it comes to sitting still when I'm nervous. "It's going to be lights out soon."

"We know," Syl snapped.

"Calm down right now," Tinga ordered. "The last thing we need now is for us to start fighting amongst ourselves. Everybody needs to relax as much as they can."

"Yes, Mommy," Syl and I said in unison. We both actually smiled.

Tinga smiled, too. "That's much better."

"Everybody in their bunks," Zack ordered.

We got in our bunks and lay down and closed our eyes and waited patiently for the lights to go out and the guard to walk by our door. As soon as he was out of sight, we sat back up in our bunks. "I got an idea," Kenny said. "How about we have a contest to see who get the least amount of sleep tonight?"

"I win," Jondy said cheerfully.

"Not counting you or Max," Kenny said. "Besides, I think Max might sleep even less than you do."

"I think he's right," Eva said. She turned to look at Max. "Are you okay, Max?"

"I'm fine," Max said. "Why?"

"You look a little pale," Eva said.

"And you're sounding like Tinga," Max said. "Eva, I'm fine."

"It's probably just the light," I said. I tried to ignore that nervous little voice in my head that was worrying that maybe something was wrong with Max. "Don't you love the moonlight in winter? It makes everybody look really weird." I blinked exaggeratedly and looked over at Syl. "You guys? I think that Syl disappeared."

The others picked up on my joke quickly. "Yeah," Zane said. "I know that Syl was here just a moment ago. Hey, now Eva's disappeared!"

"Yeah, I swore that she was in the bunk over on Maxie's left and now I have no idea where she is," Reese said.

"I didn't know that you guys were comedians instead of soldiers," Max said sarcastically as she got out of her bunk.

"Where are you going?" Zack asked.

Max smiled patiently at him. "Don't worry, Zack, I'm only going to the bathroom."

"Don't fall in," Krit said.

"I won't, but I won't make any guarantees about the next time you have to use it," Max said. She turned to walk over to the bathroom and paused for a second. We all turned and looked at her. She looked like she was starting to shake and I felt my stomach drop.

"Maxie? Are you sure that you're okay?" Zack asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Max insisted. "Don't worry." She took a deep breath and continued to walk towards the bathroom. She paused when she reached the door and turned around and smiled. "Are one of you going to escort me, or can I go all by myself like a big girl?"

"Just go and shut up," Tinga said. She looked like she was trying not to laugh.

"I will, Mommy," Max said with a grin. She ducked inside the bathroom before Tinga could have a chance to throw a pillow at her.

I breathed a sigh of relief and lay back down on my bunk. That definitely was a scare. I'm glad that's all that was. Now all I have to do is to get that annoying voice in my head to shut up about it just being the tip of the iceberg and to get a decent night's sleep.

* * *

X6-367's P.O.V.

I was wide awake for the ten millionth time after lights out. I've never been able to sleep. I think the most I've ever slept to date when I haven't been severely injured is about two hours once every week or week-and-a-half.

"Do you want some company for once?" I turned around and I saw 405 sitting up in her bunk.

"Sure, but don't you usually sleep?" I asked.

"Yeah, I usually get at least a little sleep every night," she said. "I'm just having a hard time getting to sleep tonight for some reason. Oh, well. As long as I get some sleep before we have to get up in the morning I'll be fine. Speaking of fine, is your foot bothering you?"

"It's aching a little bit, but it doesn't hurt like it did two days ago," I said. "The doctors said that I should be cleared to resume some physical activity in another day or two and that I should be cleared to resume my full training schedule another two or three days after that. I'm glad that we don't take long to heal. I hate sitting around in the library reading while you guys are out running Escape and Evade or Capture the Flag or something of that nature."

"I'm glad that I don't have to listen to the others whine about being on the short-handed side when we're out for those activities and I end up leading the short-handed side," 405 said. "I'd much rather have you out there with us, 367." She smiled. "It's too quiet."

I giggled. "Yeah. Nobody can whine like 392 or 691 when they're on the short side of a team on an exercise and the trainer's not in hearing distance."

"Not so loud. You'll wake up the others," 405 said.

"You're right," I said. "I don't want to have 392 or 691 whining at me."

405 nodded and looked out the window. "It's not snowing yet."

"It always snows in the winter," I complained. "It seems like it snows almost every day between the beginning of November and the end of March and sometimes it even snows in October or April. Why couldn't we have been at the facility in Seattle? It rains there all of the time. I like rain better than snow. It's easier to move through rain when you're training than it is to move through snow."

"Look at it this way, 367. When we're old enough to be able to go out on real missions and we get sent to someplace where it's cold and there's snow everywhere, we'll be more prepared for that than the soldiers who came from the facility in Seattle," 405 said.

"Yeah," I said. "Thanks, 405."

"You're welcome," 405 said. "I wish I could just get back to sleep. I don't know how you stay up at night almost every night and not go crazy. There's nothing to do. Nothing happens outside and nothing happens in here."

"Should we want something to happen?" I asked. I was a little confused. "I do get bored a lot at night but do we want something to happen? What if it's something bad?"

"You're right," 405 said. "I'm just not used to having this much trouble getting to sleep. I really hope that I'll be able to get to sleep eventually or I'll be slower than an ordinary soldier tomorrow."

"I'm sorry," I said. I smiled. "I could sneak out of the barracks and find the language teacher and get him to lecture to you. That always makes me want to go to sleep." We giggled.

* * *

Syl (X5-701)'s P.O.V.

I tossed and turned and gave up on trying to fall asleep for the time being. I sat up and saw that I wasn't the only one who was once again having trouble. Only Gale and Krit were definitely sleeping. Those two could sleep through anything if they wanted to. I sighed and turned onto my side and looked down my line of bunks and saw Max sitting on the edge of Jondy's bunk and talking quietly to her. She still looked kind of pale, though she wasn't shaking a little like she was when she'd gotten up about an hour ago.

"What are you guys talking about?" I asked.

"Nothing special," Jondy said. "How are you holding up?"

"As well as any of us are," I said. I walked over to her bunk and sat down on the opposite side of it from Max.

"Keep it down," Zack said from his bunk. "We do have to be quiet and people are actually trying to get some sleep."

"I really hate you sometimes," I said.

"Join the club," Zack told me. "If you want to beat me up, I think that Krit, Wayne, Kenny, and Zane are ahead of you on that list at this point in time."

"Even Zack's not acting his age," Max said. She shook her head.

"Yeah, and without prompting from Ben, too," Jondy said cheerfully.

"That's enough," Zack said. "You guys need to be quiet. If we're going to be able to pull this escape off at all, we can't give even the slightest hint that something's wrong. Our behavior can't be the slightest bit off. Get back in your bunks and pretend or actually go to sleep now."

"Yes, sir," Max said sarcastically. She gave Zack a mock salute. Jondy, Rena, Brin, Eva, and I giggled. "Anything else?"

"This should be good," Eva said.

"Yeah, right," Rena said. "Maxie's the only one Zack will occasionally let get away with teasing him like this. I think he will again this time."

"Max, please get back into your bunk," Zack said. "You were shaky earlier."

"Zack, for the millionth time, I am fine," Max insisted. She got up and walked up to Zack's bunk. "I am absolutely fine. A little shaky is all that I was and it went away. Do I look like I am shaking now?"

Zack squinted a little and looked concerned. "Actually, you are starting to shake again." We all looked over at Max and sure enough, she was starting to shake. It was so light only one of us would be able to notice, but there was no doubt that she was shaking.

"What?!" Max said. She raised her hand to her face and bit her lip. "This isn't good."

"Get back to your bunk and try to sleep it off," Zack ordered. "Maybe you've just been working too hard lately."

Max nodded. "Yeah, that's probably it. Good night." She turned to walk to her bunk on the other side of the room and stumbled, stopping herself from falling just in time. Oh, no…

Zack sat up in his bunk immediately. "Do you need help getting back to your bunk?"

"It's only a few more steps," Max said. "I can make it." She slowly continued to walk towards her bunk but paused again. Just like Jack had done yesterday, she collapsed in a heap on the floor, shaking violently. Immediately, we all got up from our bunks and rushed over to her.

"Maxie!" Jondy cried.

"It's okay, Maxie, it's okay," Zack said. He helped Max into a sitting position.

Gale and Krit stirred at the commotion and blinked a few times before their eyes widened in terror and they shot out of their bunks and over to the rest of us. "Max? Are you okay?" Krit asked.

"How m—m—many times do I ha—have to repeat this?" Max managed to say. "I'm f—fine."

"Just relax, Maxie," Tinga assured her. "Just stay calm. We're going to get you back to your bunk and you're going to relax and the seizure will go away and you can sleep it off. It'll be okay. Don't—" Tinga stopped suddenly and turned to the door at the same time that the rest of us did. I started trembling, but out of fear. There were footsteps coming towards our barracks. The guard had heard us. Maxie was in trouble.

"They're going to take her away, they're going to take her away," Brin whimpered. "They're going to take her away like they took Jack."

"No," Zack said. He'd looked as frightened, if not more so, than the rest of us had when we'd heard the guard coming back towards our barracks, but now his eyes looked more determined than I'd ever seen them look before. He took a deep breath and made a gesture with his hands. _This is it. Right now._ We knew exactly what he meant. We looked at each other and nodded back to him, even Max. I started to feel the fear disappear and the determination that Zack had shown replaced it. We tensed and crowded even closer around Max. Ben took Zack's place next to Max and Zack quietly snuck closer to the door. A few moments later, we heard the footsteps stop at the door and the door opened and a guard stepped inside the room.

"Get back in your bunks, you little shits! Get away from the ill soldier." He started to grab his walkie-talkie, but Zack attacked him before he could communicate with Lydecker. He fell to the ground and Zack made another gesture and Zane and Eva dragged the guard over to the closest bunk and tied him to it and gagged him with the sheets. Zack gestured to Eva, who nodded and took the guard's pistol and walked over to the door and waited. Zack went back over to Max, whose seizures were luckily slowing down, and he and Jondy helped her up and we followed the three of them out the door. We paused and let Eva moved to the front of us before we started to move down the hall. This was going to be tricky. We didn't make even the slightest bit of noise. So close, we were getting so close…

"Stand down immediately."

* * *

Kenny (X5-987)'s P.O.V.

I'd frozen in my tracks out of reflex when I heard Colonel Lydecker. Okay, probably out of fear too. We were so close to getting out of here. We had to get past Colonel Lydecker and the soldiers that were with him somehow.

"No," Eva said calmly. There we go. Eva's usually a voice of reason. Maybe for once even Colonel Lydecker would listen to her or at least listen to the gun that she's aiming right at his chest.

"X5-766, I'm ordering you to put down your weapon and I am ordering your unit to return to its barracks," Colonel Lydecker demanded. "You will leave X5-452 with us so that she may be brought to the infirmary to receive treatment."

"She's fine," Eva said. I glanced over at Max and saw that her seizures were gone. Thank goodness. "You're not going to dissect her alive."

"417 was dead when we conducted the autopsy," Colonel Lydecker said.

"No, he was not," Eva corrected. "You killed him. We're not letting you do this to Max."

"766, I repeat, you are to drop your weapon immediately and 599 will escort the unit, including 452, back to your barracks immediately," Colonel Lydecker repeated. "I am giving you a direct order. Drop the weapon."

"No," Eva said. "I will not drop the weapon and you will move out of our way and let us pass."

Colonel Lydecker just stared at Eva for a few moments. Then, without a word, he drew his own gun and shot her. We all just stood there for a few moments, almost completely numb. Eva was gone.

* * *

Zane (X5-205)'s P.O.V.

I stared at Eva's body in front of me. Her gun lay just in front of Max, who was still being supported by Zack and Jondy. Her face still had that calm, determined expression that had never left her when she'd faced down Colonel Lydecker. I couldn't believe she was dead. In just over twenty-four hours, both Eva and Jack were gone.

Colonel Lydecker stared us down for another minute or two before he spoke. I guess he thought the fight had gone out of us. "599, lead your unit back to your barracks. You will all be escorted to Psychological Operations at sunrise. Dismissed."

"Yes, sir," Zack said. If looks could kill, Lydecker would have been dead at least a hundred times and probably a hundred different extremely painful ways, too. Zack made sure that Max could stand on her own before he let go of her arm and turned to face the rest of us. "Unit 2, fall in line and follow me."

"Sir, yes sir!" we yelled. We formed a line and followed Zack back down the hall towards our barracks. Once we were out of sight of Lydecker, Zack made a quick gesture. _Plan B. Window._ We agreed and continued to follow Zack. Zack held a hand up and we halted. I heard three guards just down the hall, just feet away from the window that we were planning on using. Zack turned to me and Kenny, who were right behind him in the line, and gestured in the guards' direction. We moved ahead of the rest of our family and quickly took out the guards and motioned for the others to move ahead. We continued and reached the large window. Zack motioned to Kenny and I again and we spread out and backed up against the wall. The three of us looked at each other before we took a deep breath and ran for the window, shattering it to pieces as we dove through it.

* * *

Reese (X5-552)'s P.O.V.

I dove through the broken window after Zack, Zane, and Kenny and ran like hell when I hit the ground. I could hear guards rush up to the broken window and towards and out the doors and shoot at us, some using guns and some using tasers. We split up to take different routes to the rendezvous point that we had agreed upon last night. I took off to the left. Gale followed me.

"It's not too far ahead," Gale said.

"I see it," I said. "Just stay alert."

"Got it," Gale said.

We continued on ahead when we heard gunfire from nearby and we hit the ground. I stayed as close to the ground as I could until I heard the gunfire ease up. I gently shook Gale's arm. "Come on, Gale, let's go." Gale didn't respond. I held my breath and I turned my head and took a good look at my sister and my jaw hit the ground. "Gale!"

* * *

X6-405's P.O.V.

367 and I jumped when we heard the faint sound of glass breaking somewhere else in the building. A few moments later, we heard the outside sirens come on. We looked at each other worriedly and ran to the window and looked outside.

"Can you see anything?" 367 asked.

"No," I said. "I can't see a thing. Whatever's happening must be on the other side of the building. I can't even hear what's going on that well. I can hear the outside sirens but that's only because they're set off all around the building."

"It's nothing bad, right, 405?" 367 asked nervously. "Are we in danger?"

"If we were in danger, we would have been notified and moved to a safe location," I said. "That's standard operating procedure, remember?"

"But it's got to be bad. The sirens are on," 367 said. "I'm getting a little scared."

"Don't worry," I said. That seemed to calm 367 down, but for some reason, I started feeling a little worried. Something had to be going on, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I knew that we couldn't be in danger, but somebody had to be. Was it the normal soldiers? Was it Colonel Lydecker? Was it some of the other X-series like us? What if it was 599? Strangely, I felt myself getting even more worried when that thought crossed my mind. That was weird, but I couldn't shake that feeling off. I took a deep breath and continued trying to look out of the window with 367. There's nothing to worry about. Don't start worrying until you know that you have something to worry about. Don't start worrying until you know that you have something to worry about…

* * *

Tinga (X5-656)'s P.O.V.

I finally almost flew over a log at the rendezvous point and hid behind it. Zack and Ben were already there and after what seemed like forever, more of us started showing up. Rena came, and then Zane, and then Jondy and Krit and Parker and Reese until finally Max and then Brin showed up. I did a quick head count. There were only fifteen of us present. There should have been seventeen. Jace and Gale were missing.

Zack noticed this at the same time that I did and made a gesture. _Where are Gale and Jace?_

Reese looked pained and shook his head. _Gale's gone. She took one straight through the head._

Max looked regretful. _Jace didn't leave. She stayed behind inside._

Zack nodded and took another look around before he started signaling again. _We're splitting up, just like we'd planned. Head in the direction that I give as soon as you receive it and I'll come looking for you in that direction as soon as I can. There are fifteen of us so that means we split up into seven pairs of two and I'll go by myself._

Max vehemently shook her head. _You are not going by yourself._

Zack gave her a look. _It's the best way and you know it, Max._ He took a deep breath and began to split us up and give us our directions. _Ben and Reese, south. Max and Jondy, west. Krit and Syl, northeast. Zane and Rena, east. Brin and Elle, northwest. Parker and Kenny, north. Tinga and Wayne, southeast._

Wayne and I, the last ones left, nodded and we took off. We raced towards the fence, somehow managing to avoid the bullets that the guards were shooting at us. We jumped to the fence, scaled it, jumped over the top, and ran like we'd never run before. We didn't look back.

* * *

Brin (X5-734)'s P.O.V.

Elle and I were off as soon as Zack told us to head northwest. We ran for the fence and climbed over it and continued running as soon as we hit the other side. We ran in our assigned direction until Elle finally spotted a cave and we went inside it. I looked around for some dry twigs and got a fire going and we just sat in front of it for a few minutes and warmed ourselves up.

"That was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me," Elle said.

"It's not over yet," I said. "It's only beginning."

"Yeah, you're right," Elle admitted. She grinned. "I can't wait until I can have my first ice cream sundae. Have you ever heard of those? I heard these X4s talking about them. It's some kind of a dessert and these X4s had one on a mission and they were saying how they missed them and how good they were. I can't wait until I have one."

"I've heard about ice cream," I said. "I can't wait until I have my first sundae."

"What about boys?" Elle wondered. "I wonder how different the ordinary boys are different from the transgenic boys. Do you ever think about boys, Brin?"

I made a face. "I'm only ten, Elle. I hate boys. You can't be having another heat cycle, are you? You only had your first one about a month-and-a-half ago and there's apparently three months between each one."

"No, I'm not having another heat cycle," Elle said. "Get real." She started to stretch but winced in pain.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine," Elle said. "I got a bullet graze across my right shoulder. It's nothing serious. I'll be okay until we get into a town and we can steal some gauze and antiseptic. We don't get infections anyway."

"I wish there was something around here that we could use as a bandage until we get some real ones," I said.

"Too bad nobody went camping in here and left a first aid kit behind," Elle agreed.

"We should move out at some point," I said. "We're still a little too close to Manticore, aren't we?"

"I think we are," Elle said. "We're definitely out past the perimeter but we need to be farther out. Remember that map of the United States that was hanging up in Room 19? Gillette doesn't look like it's too far from the state border. It's only about fifty, fifty-five miles or so from here to Montana. We should be able to get there fairly quickly. We can head to Oregon or Washington from there."

"That sounds like a plan," I said. I looked down at the fire. "I can't believe that Gale is gone and that Jace decided not to leave. I can't believe that we might not see our brothers and sisters again."

"Oh, we'll see Zack," Elle said. "You know that he's going to find us someday."

"When there's a will, even when there's not a way, Zack will be there," we said in unison. We giggled at the memory of when Kenny had paraphrased a saying that he'd learned that one day a few years ago in his military history class. Kenny had been right. You could always count on Zack, even when the situation looked darker than the sky on a summer night right before it would rain.

I stopped giggling when something near the entrance to the cave caught my eye. I crept forward and looked and saw that it was only a little bit of blood. Judging by how red the color was, it was probably a drop of Elle's blood that had dripped from her wound. I almost shrugged it off, but then I saw another drop a few feet in front of me. I zoomed in and saw a little bit more blood back in the direction that Elle and I had come from.

"Brin? What's going on?" Elle asked. "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah," I said. I walked back over to Elle and sat down across from her. "The blood from your wound dripped and left a trail."

"Oh no," Elle said. "If the trail went back far enough, we're…" Her face got really serious. "Brin, if they catch onto the trail and start to come after us, I want you to run. I want us to split up."

"No way," I said. "Zack already split what was left of our family up. You're all I have left until Zack finds us again."

"Brin, do what I'm telling you if it comes to it," Elle insisted. "If they find us and we stick together, the chances of them recapturing and/or killing us will be much higher. If they find us and we split up, there's a much better chance that at least one of us will be able to slip by them. Trust me, Brin."

"I trust you," I said. "You're right."

"I—" Elle stopped suddenly and we both turned towards the entrance of the cave. "—swear that I'm psychic. Brin, run!"

I got up and took off for the cave. Elle was right behind me. We tore off towards the northwest when Elle looked over at me, put her hand on my shoulder, smiled a little, and ran off in a slightly different direction. I quickly wiped my eyes with my right hand, took a deep breath, and continued on and prayed to the Blue Lady that I would see Elle and my other siblings again.

* * *

X5-511's P.O.V.

I stirred at the noise of a door slamming. I heard the rustle of sheets being yanked back and the noise of people being yanked out of bed. I finally opened my eyes and sat up in my bunk and saw guards leading 908, 494, and 121 out of the room.

"There's been a situation," one of the guards said. "X5-786 is temporarily in charge of the unit and X5-013 will be 786's temporary second-in-command. We need X5-908, X5-494, and X5-121 to come with us for an indeterminate period of time. You will be briefed on the situation later." The door quickly slammed shut. I was really confused. What was going on?

* * *

X6-405's P.O.V.

367 and I looked at each other and shrugged when the outside alarms were finally turned off and the noises quieted down. I looked around and saw that we were still the only ones up. "We're lucky that nobody woke up from that."

"Yeah, I'm a little surprised myself," 367 admitted.

"I should try again to get some sleep," I said. "Get in your bunk and pretend to sleep, okay? If you actually do fall asleep, that'll be even better. Your foot is still healing."

"Yes, ma'am," 367 said. She saluted me and smiled. "Good night, 405."

"Good night, 367," I said. I crawled into my bunk and actually fell asleep a few moments later. It didn't last long, though. I didn't even have time to dream when I was woken up by the sound of a door slamming. I glanced up at the clock on the wall and saw that it had only been about half an hour since I'd finally gotten to sleep. I immediately sat up straight in my bunk when I saw Colonel Lydecker standing in the doorway. "Sir! May I inquire what is going on?"

"There's a situation," Colonel Lydecker said. "X5 Unit 2 has escaped from the facility. X6-405, you are to come with me immediately. X6-115, you are in charge of the unit for the foreseeable future. X6-773 will be your second-in-command until 405 returns to the unit and retakes command." He walked up to me and practically pulled me out of my bunk and out the door.

My mind was reeling. X5 Unit 2 had escaped. 599 had left Manticore? Why? To be honest, I had an idea. I mean, if a trainer had essentially killed one of my unit mates, what had been done to 599's unit? They were older. They had seen more than my unit had. Some of them had even been sent on a few short-term group missions. They had to have done something to them to provoke them into leaving. I'd heard about how protective 599 was of his unit. Kind of like how I am with my unit. I had the impression, from the few times that I'd been around him, that 599 hated Colonel Lydecker and hated Manticore. If Colonel Lydecker had done something so bad…

"You will remain here for a length of time to be determined, 405," Colonel Lydecker said. I looked up and panicked. Oh no. Not this. I didn't do anything to deserve this! I'd only been in here maybe once so far, I think it was a few weeks ago, when Colonel Lydecker brought in the class to 'familiarize' ourselves with torture and interrogation techniques. I was strapped into that damn chair and was 'interrogated' for at least an hour. After that hour, I never wanted to repeat that experience again. Now I'd be here for much longer than that. Why? For the first time since 607 died in the tank and probably only the second time in my life, I was really scared.

"Psychological Operations? Why do I have to be here, sir?" I said.

"Just get in there, 405, and do not question your orders," he said angrily.

I knew I had to shut up or I'd be in really deep trouble. "Yes, sir."

Colonel Lydecker opened the door and almost shoved me into this waiting type room. At least ten other soldiers were there. He turned to a guard that was standing near the door. "Here's X6-405, the C.O. of X6 Unit 1. That makes eleven. What's the status on the rest that we have to bring here?"

"The other five C.O.s are being brought here as we speak, sir," the guard replied. "Are we expecting any more within the hour, sir, or is this it for now?"

"I received a transmission from Charlie Squad right before I retrieved 405," Lydecker said. "They picked up a blood trail and are following up on it, so we'll see." He nodded to him. "Carry on. Let me know when they go in."

"Yes, sir," the guard said. Colonel Lydecker left.

I looked around the room and saw that most of the commanding officers of the X5 and X6 units. Other than 599's unit, of course. The only soldier in the room, weirdly enough, was from 599's unit. 798 looked more miserable than the rest of us put together. Had she tried to break out with the rest of her unit but had gotten caught? That would make me miserable.

"Why are you here?" I asked. I hate these tense silences, anyway.

"She's here because her stupid unit decided to leave and now because of them, we're going to have to be in Psy Ops for a long time," 374, the commanding officer of X5 Unit 8, snapped. "Thanks a lot, 798."

"I stayed back," 798 said angrily. "They decided that they wanted to leave. I decided otherwise. Doesn't that mean something?" I looked at her skeptically. To be honest, her eyes looked like she was starting to regret staying behind while her unit got out. She caught my eye and almost jumped and for a moment, looked like she was going to cry. I was confused. Why had she reacted like that?

"Her unit decided to leave and 798 decided not to leave. You have to give 798 credit for staying," I told 374. "Wouldn't that be the right decision in your book, 374?" I don't think it'd be the right decision in mine, but the last thing I want is for 374 to start a fight. "798 is obviously here for precautionary reasons."

"But why are the rest of us here?" 595, commanding officer of X6 Unit 3, wondered. "That explains 798's presence, but not ours."

"I don't know," 374 said. "I hope that we'll find out soon." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, 798. You obviously made the correct choice."

"I accept your apology," 798 said.

We were pretty much quiet while the rest of the X5 and X6 commanding officers were brought into the room. I tried not to think about what could happen. If I thought about what they could to to me here, I'd panic. I needed to stay calm. I'd had to stay calm before for my unit's sake. For one of the few times in my life, I needed to stay calm solely for my own sanity. After what seemed like forever, another door opened and a man in a white lab coat stepped out. Stay calm, 405, stay calm…

"X5-798, X6-405, X5-374, and X6-193, follow me," he ordered. I stood up and nervously followed him through the door. The second I had left the room, I was grabbed and forced into one of those chairs and strapped down. I struggled out of reflex and was slapped.

"Quit struggling, you little piece of shit!" a voice ordered. My right eye was forced open and a laser was shone right into it. A screen in front of me lit up with a picture of 599.

"This is X5-599. He is now a traitor to Manticore," a voice said. "He is poison. He infected the rest of his unit with this poison."

"Huh?" I managed to say. "What—"

"Shut up, you little bitch!" a different voice screamed at me. I was whipped hard with something. It was enough to make me scream out of reflex and then I was whipped with it even harder. "I told you to shut up, you little worthless piece of scum. You will do as you're told!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" I managed to say.

"Those members of his unit that had chosen to follow his lead are traitors." Pictures of 452, 656, 164, 205, 210, 734, 701, 157, 552, 493, 120, and 369 flashed up in front of me. "They are rats. They deserted Manticore. They abandoned Manticore. You will forever know them as traitors and scum." No, I will not! They left because they had a reason. If 599's anything like me, he doesn't do anything unless he has a reason to do it and he must have taught his unit the same. I'm starting to see the reason. If they let unit mates die and torture people with no acceptable reason available, then why should we stay? Why should any of us stay?

"Pay attention, you maggot! Right now!" I was punched in the eye that wasn't opened. I managed to suppress a scream that time. "Oh, will you look at that. The little piece of trash is actually learning. Let's give the little bitch a cookie!"

I tried to focus or at least appear to focus my attention back on the screen. Pictures of 766, 987, 831, and 537 came up. "These soldiers paid the price for their traitorous acts. This will happen to you. This is what happens to all traitorous soldiers." Gee, did that make 607 a traitor because he wanted to be released early from the tank because he was having serious trouble holding his breath?

"Pay attention you dumb little piece of shit!" the other voice screamed at me. I felt one of my feet being grabbed and my ankle twisted to the point of it breaking. "I've asked you to pay attention and you will do it, soldier! Do I have to ask you again! Do you want a broken ankle because you're such a dumb little bitch?!"

"Sir, I do not want a broken ankle, sir!" I yelled. "I will pay attention, sir!"

"How do I know that? Maybe I shouldn't take a chance. Maybe I should make you pay attention, soldier." A hand carrying a large syringe came into my view and I tried not to bite my lip or scream. I had a really good idea as to what was in it.

"Sir, I will pay attention, sir!" I yelled.

"Good." He broke my ankle anyway. I tried not to let any tears fall and I tried to pretend to pay attention to the slides and the voice. How could they do that to me? To any of us? Why were they doing this?

TBC


	8. Chapter 8: X5 157

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

Notes: In case you're reading this fic first before you read "Together", in that fic (which I started writing and posting first), I decided to make Krit's designation 157 as opposed to 471 like it was in the show to fit in with that story.

Krit (X5-157)'s P.O.V.

"This place is so huge," I said. "Can you believe how many people are out here? It's busier than that time that Colonel Lydecker had all of us X-series line up in the courtyard for those generals that came out to visit that one time last year."

"This is insane," Syl agreed. "Can you believe that we're in a real city? I knew from what we've learned in our classes that Chicago was a big city, but I never knew that it was really this big!" She grinned. "They'd never find us here!"

"Yeah," I agreed. "What do you want to do first?"

"We should probably find a place to stay," Syl said.

"That alley looks good," I said, pointing to a nearby alley.

"Krit, be serious," Syl said.

"I am serious," I said. "This isn't one of those little towns that we've been hiding out in for the past three weeks. We won't be finding any abandoned houses on the edge of town here. We need to be realistic about this."

"I hate being realistic," Syl said.

"So do I, but we don't have a choice about it," I said.

"Yeah, we don't want to get picked up by the local authorities and get put into the foster care system and split up," Syl agreed. "I still say that we should exhaust all of our other options before we spend the night in an alley. Don't you remember what the older ones all said after they got back from that mission that Lydecker sent them on almost three months ago about how dangerous it is for a normal child to be by his or herself at night in a place like that alley? We have to pretend to be normal. It's as dangerous for us at least for the time being as it is for them."

"I know," I said. "Then it's got to be bad for those kids over there, huh?"

"Krit, for heaven's sake don't point like that," Syl hissed. "Good grief, they saw us."

"Hey," the oldest kid said. "You guys new in town?"

"We are," I said. "What do you want?"

"No need to jump down my throat," he said. "I'm Jasper. I just wanted to know what you were doing. You look like you're new in town."

He probably did want to know what we were doing, only he wanted to know so that he'd have a valid excuse to try to beat us up later. "I'm Jason and this is my stepsister Kim." I saw Syl give an almost unnoticeable nod of approval in my direction. "We're just trying to figure out what we're gonna do here."

"Well, why are you here in the first place?" Jasper asked.

"His dad and my mom are drunks," Syl said. "Big-time drunks. They used to beat the hell out of us all of the time when they weren't beating up each other. We had enough so we left our house and we haven't looked back."

"Happens all of the time," Jasper said knowingly. "That explains the 'cuts?"

"With me, anyway," Syl said. "Mom got jealous of my hair. It's blond and it used to be really long and pretty. A few days before Jason and I ran away, she had some tequila and got upset that I had pretty hair like all the snotty cheerleaders did, whatever that meant, and cut it off and shaved my head."

"I just thought that it looked really cool," I said.

"You don't have to worry about that anymore," Jasper said. "You guys want to join my crew?"

"Crew?" I repeated.

"Yeah, those guys over there," Jasper said. "We live out here on the streets, we steal what we need, and we're free. I've only got a few basic rules. First rule: no whining about how what we do is illegal. No shit it's illegal. All of us ran away from what passes for a home one way or another. How do you think we're going to live? Second rule: everybody does their fair share of what we need to do. If you're being lazy when you're not supposed to be without a good reason, like when we're out getting food or money, then you can kiss my ass and go away. Third rule: no squealing to the police. None of us wants to go back to our families or what's left of them if we even have a family. That's pretty much it. You guys in?"

"We're in," I said.

"Great," Jasper said. "Come with me and I'll introduce you to the rest of our group. We don't have a name that we call ourselves."

"You don't?" Syl asked.

"Nah," Jasper said. "We couldn't think of one."

"Do you mind if I have a word with my sis first?" I said. "We'll be right there."

"Nope, go ahead," Jasper said.

We moved far enough away so that Jasper couldn't hear us. "What is it?" I asked quietly. "You don't like this idea."

"Krit, doing this could draw attention to us," Syl pointed out.

"I'm not an idiot," I said. "But we'll be safer in a group, at least for the first few months out here on our own until we really get the hang of living here in the Outside. Plus, Lydecker won't think about looking for us in a gang of normal kids. He'll be looking for us in the foster care system or hiding out on the streets by ourselves or at most in pairs and not with anybody else, whether they're part of our family or not. This is our best option. Even Zack would have to agree."

"Yeah, right," Syl said, but she did start to smile at that thought.

"Maybe Zack wouldn't like the fact that it's our best option," I conceded. "Zack doesn't like anything, though. At least he doesn't show it that often if he does."

"Good point," Syl said. She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Okay, it's your call on this one."

"Thanks," I said. We walked back up to Jasper and I smiled. "Sorry about that. Kim was just a little nervous about this."

"No problem," Jasper said. "I understand." He led us over to the other kids. "Guys, we've got some new friends. This is Jason and this is Jason's stepsister, Kim. Jason, Kim, I'd like you to meet Gabriel, Matt, Lauren, Bruce, Andrea, and Melissa."

"Nice to meet you," Lauren said. "Welcome to our crew."

"Thanks," I said. I blinked in disbelief at her hair. I didn't think it was genetically possible or even artificially possible for somebody to have hair that was that shade of pink.

"Do you like the dye job?" Lauren said. "I did it myself."

"It's interesting," Syl said.

"When your hair's long enough, I'll dye yours," Lauren offered.

"Maybe," Syl said. "If Jason and I are here long enough."

"Of course you will be," Matt said. "You're with friends."

I smiled. I liked that idea. I hated being without any of the others of my family and I wished so hard that we would all be together again, but this would be pretty good, too.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9: X6 405

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

X6-405's P.O.V.

"I'm sorry that I have to use these measures, 405," the nurse apologized to me as she sat me down in a chair in the infirmary and strapped my legs and arms, even my right arm, which was in a splint because of an overzealous soldier. He had wanted to get the point that only traitors couldn't take pain across by twisting my right arm until it had nearly been dislocated at the elbow and had done some ligament damage to it. "My orders are to take these precautions because you're still in Psychological Operations. If it makes you feel better, your arm is healing wonderfully and I checked your right ankle also and there's no sign of that injury anymore, either."

I really wasn't sure if that did make me feel better or not. The only thing that I knew that I felt was relief that I was getting a brief rest from Psy Ops while I was treated for my injury and the nurse drew blood for some testing that needed to be done. "Thank you for your concern, ma'am."

"You're welcome, 405," she said. She tied the tourniquet on my left arm above the elbow and picked the syringe up off the tray and drew some blood. I didn't even flinch. Even if I hadn't had more blood samples taken than I could count, that sting was nothing compared to what I had been going through for the last…how long had I been in Psy Ops so far? I had no idea.

"Am I to remain here, ma'am?" I asked when I saw that the nurse had finished drawing blood.

"For the moment," the nurse said. "I need to bring this blood over to the technicians and see if they're going to need me to draw more blood or if I need to take another kind of sample. I shouldn't be too long." She picked her tray back up and walked into another room.

I sighed and blinked back the tears. I missed my unit. I hope they were doing okay while I was gone. I hoped that 115 was doing a good job being in charge while I'm stuck being tortured. I wish that…

"Now this is some interesting information," a voice said. I perked up and focused in on the direction that the voice was coming from. I hoped the person knew what was going on.

"Who cares about the information?" another voice whined. "Information, information, information, do you know what? Colonel Donald Damn Lydecker can take all of this paperwork and information and cram it up his ass!" I almost giggled. Now that's one phrase that I know I shouldn't tell 773 about. I can only imagine how often he'd be using it! "I am sick of all this paperwork! Ever since those little bastards ran from here, I haven't had a moment of free time."

"We never had a moment of free time before those X5s escaped," the first voice said.

"No shit," the second voice retorted. "But can you honestly remember when the last time we actually spent our lunch breaks eating in the staff cafeteria and not out of a brown paper bag behind these desks as we were working?"

"Before they left," the first voice admitted.

"Exactly," the second voice said. He sounded satisfied. "You do have a point. This is some interesting shit. We've got the stats that Lydecker gave us from that night, but what have we here? These are transcripts from X5-798's sessions in Psychological Operations, right?"

"Yeah," the first voice said. "This is weird stuff, especially for the X5s." He laughed. "Look at this right here. That unit actually gave each other names. They're not completely human but they gave themselves names!" I glared in that direction. If I wasn't strapped to this chair, I'd go over there and teach him a lesson. My bad arm wouldn't slow me down that much.

"All twenty of them, even the ones who died before the escape attempt," the second voice said. "599, escaped. He called himself Zack." He snorted. "Give the kid a medal."

"You've got to hand it to the guy for picking out a normal name," the first voice said. "A few of these names in here are weird. Second oldest, 656. Escaped. She went by the name 'Tinga.' What kind of a name is Tinga?"

"987. Shot and killed as he reached the perimeter fence and resisted capture. He was known as Kenny," the second voice read. "205, escaped. He was known as Zane. 164, recaptured but injured during her recapture and died from her injuries two days later. She was known as Elle. 064, killed by friendly fire during a training exercise on October 28th, 2008. He was known as Dash. Nice irony, huh? 493, escaped. He was known as Ben. 552, escaped. He was known as Reese. 120, escaped. She was known as Rena. 369, escaped. He was known as Wayne. 831, shot and killed before she could reach the perimeter fence. She was known as Gale. 701, escaped. She was known as Syl. 537, also shot and killed as he reached the perimeter fence and resisted capture. He was known as Parker. 798, did not escape with her unit and chose to remain behind. Currently undergoing precautionary testing and reindoctrination in Psychological Operations. She was known as Jace. 734, escaped. She was known as Brin. 417, suffered a seizure the day before the escape. He was recovering from the seizure, but the decision was made by Colonel Lydecker to have him terminated so testing could be performed so that the cause of these seizures, which have shown up in several X5s and X6s, could be determined. He was known as Jack. 766, shot and killed by Colonel Lydecker himself when she refused to lower her weapon as she attempted to lead the unit out. She was known as Eva. 210, escaped. She was known as Jondy. 157, escaped. He was known as Krit. 452, escaped. She was known as Max."

I blinked in astonishment. They had given themselves names? They had defied the rules and given themselves names? That took serious guts. I could feel my respect for them growing by the second.

"But wait, there's more," the first voice said. He laughed. "They called themselves brothers and sisters. They actually knew or knew what the concept of brothers and sisters actually were! They believed themselves to be human, or at least more than simply soldiers. They thought that they were individuals. How big of a load of crap is that? They've got barcodes on their backs of their necks just like any other thing! They've been engineered to be smart as hell. I'd like to think that they'd realize that on their own."

No, they're right. 599—_Zack—_and his family were right. I sat quietly and let everything sink in and fall into place. I was more than just the stupid number on the back of my neck. So was 115, 367, and my other unit mates—no, they were my brothers and sisters. Maybe they didn't know exactly what it meant or they weren't consciously aware of it, but they were more than just my unit. They're my family. I'm not stupid. I know the difference between simply a unit and a family like mine and Zack's. Unit 3 is just a unit. We're not. And I—and everybody else—were more than just soldiers. We're people. Maybe a little genetically different than everybody else, but we're people all the same. And why are we stuck here in the first place? I'm only six years old! I'm really just a kid. I don't think that normal kids this young are soldiers. I haven't seen a guard my age around here.

I closed my eyes as I felt the anger come across. I couldn't believe that Colonel Lydecker had killed a member of Zack's family for no reason at all! They could have easily just drawn his blood or done an MRI of his head or any other test that didn't involve killing him and performing an autopsy! How dare they?! If they did that to one of my brothers or sisters… I opened my eyes again, fully understanding how Zack must have felt for the first time. How enraged I had been after the trainer had let 607 drown, this was much worse. Colonel Lydecker, the man that was supposed to be in charge of all of us, who was supposed to make us better, who was as close to a parental figure as any of us had, had essentially killed one of us transgenics in cold blood. Not just one, I reminded myself, but two of us. He'd also killed Eva. I'd had a bad feeling about Colonel Lydecker for as long as I could remember, and now it exploded.

"405?" the nurse said as she re-entered the room. "You don't need any more blood drawn. The guards are on their way here to escort you back to Psychological Operations."

"Thank you, ma'am," I said. I waited quietly until two guards came into the room. One of them pointed his rifle at me while the other undid the restraints and pulled me up by my good arm and pushed me forward and escorted me out of the infirmary and back to Psy Ops. I held my head high as I marched with them down the halls. I was more than just a soldier. I would no longer refer to Zack and his family by their designations if I could help it. One of these days, I would find a name for myself. I would not let Manticore break me down and turn me into a mindless soldier in Psy Ops. I took a deep breath as I went back into Psy Ops and was strapped back down into that damn chair. I would break out of here one day. That was a promise.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10: X5 120

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

Notes: As far as I know, WBPY is not an actual radio or television station. I just made it up. If it is, I don't own it.

Rena (X5-120)'s P.O.V.

"I absolutely love this unseasonably warm weather," Zane said, grinning as he stood in the shallow water. "This is absolutely the best thing known to man and transgenic kind."

"How can you stand being in the water for more than you absolutely have to?" I wondered. I could tolerate being in the water if the situation called for it, but to voluntarily spend more time in water than I needed to? Yeah, right. Not for me. "Have you forgotten whose DNA we were engineered with?"

"They could have thrown in some kind of fish or amphibious DNA in one or two of us somewhere," Zane said. "You never know. They did put some shark DNA in Max and Jondy, remember?"

"Yeah, but Jondy doesn't like being in water any more than I do and Max thinks that it's okay but she doesn't like it any more or less than these normal people seem to like it," I said. I smirked. "And have I mentioned how stupid those swimming trunks make you look?"

Zane rolled his eyes. "Only about twenty-five times, Rena."

"Make that twenty-six," I said. "You still look like an idiot in them."

"Who picked out these trunks...oh yeah, it was you!" Zane said.

"It's a good thing that you got those trunks based on my personal opinion. I'm scared trying to imagine what your own taste in swimwear is like," I teased.

"Shut up, you moron," Zane said. "Do I even need to mention that really weird thing that you refer to as your bathing suit?" He sighed and dove into the water. I wondered for a moment if he was going to swim off and leave me here by myself. Nah, that wouldn't be something that Zane would do, at least he wouldn't do that to me. Maybe Krit or Wayne would do that. No, I know that Krit or Wayne would have just swam off and then hidden somewhere and laughed as I would try to look for them. I sighed. Krit was out somewhere together with Syl and Wayne was somewhere else entirely with Tinga. I had no idea what they were doing or how they were doing. I missed them like crazy. I missed all of them.

"It's okay," Zane said. I almost jumped and turned around and saw him sitting on the towel next to me. I didn't even hear him get out of the water. "I miss everybody, too. We've got to believe that we'll all be together again."

"I know," I said.

"Look, you need to relax," Zane said.

"Wow. I never thought that you would be telling me that I needed to relax," I said. "How many times was it the other way around?"

"About a million and all of them after some dumb stunt that you pulled in training or some prank that you and the other two Musketeers did to someone else or to each other," Zane said. He's been referring to me and Max and Jondy as the Three Musketeers ever since he read that book last week. I read it after he was done with it and it was pretty good. He squeezed my shoulder. "Come on, let's go get some dinner after I dry off and then go home. It's got to be close to nine o' clock."

"A beautiful rusted-out 1960s-era Chevrolet sedan lined with blankets, home sweet home," I deadpanned.

"We were lucky to find that car in that junkyard," Zane reminded me. He shook his head as he toweled off and turned around and changed out of his trunks and took out his shorts and t-shirt and put them on. We packed up our towels and stuffed them in my duffel bag and walked away from the beach. He grinned wickedly at me. "And lucky to find a beach that allows night swimming."

"Enough with the water already," I said. "What do you want for get for dinner?"

"I'm not sure," Zane said. "You've got the money on you today. How much do we have? The last time I counted, we had about fifty dollars with us."

"Yeah, we still have fifty," I said. "That's plenty for dinner tonight."

"We should make that stretch into tomorrow, though," Zane said. "I know that we could always—" He and I stopped in our tracks and then dove to the side, just missing the sparks that came showering down from the neon sign that we were walking under just then. Zane blinked and looked over at me. "Rena, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. What on earth happened?" I picked my head up and looked around. "It looks like some kind of blackout. The weather was absolutely fine, though. What could be causing this?"

"I might be smart, but I'm not psychic," Zane said. "Whatever's going on, stay close to me. This could be dangerous. Don't give me any of that 'yes, daddy' crap, I really mean it."

I made sure nobody was paying attention and zoomed in on an apartment window across the street from us. "Nothing's working, not ever TVs." I saw a young man looking to cross the street who was listening to an MP3 player. "Nothing that needs electricity, anyway. The batteries in our radio should be fresh, right?"

"Right," Zane said. He smiled. "Good thinking, Rena."

I bent down and opened the duffel bag and took out our transistor radio and turned it on. I tuned into a station and we sat down on the sidewalk and listened to the news. "Looks like dinner's going to wait for awhile at least."

"There's nothing that we can do about it," Zane agreed. "Hey, this is our first blackout. We never really experienced one back at Manticore with all of the backup generators that they must have had there."

"Of all the Outside rites of passage that we're going to go through or have gone through, this isn't my favorite," I said. "It's boring."

"This isn't my favorite, either," Zane said. "What ones are you looking forward to, Rena?"

"Getting my first real haircut," I said. "Not until my hair's long enough to cover the barcode, even though we get that stupid thing burned off." I grinned and ran a hand through my hair. It's this really neat dark auburn color. "I absolutely love my hair color."

"Girls and their hair," Zane said. "Tinga and Gale and Brin would practically cry every time they would buzz our hair."

"Hey, don't make fun of girls because of stuff like that," I said. "Ben might have been the second most serious in our family, but he was probably the biggest narcissist at times."

"Little Ree-Ree is using big words," Zane teased.

"You're right, I am using big words and I am going to put you in a big world of pain if you don't stop using that stupid nickname," I said. "You know how much I hate it."

"Sorry, Rena," Zane apologized.

"Good," I said. I smiled at him. "I'm also looking forward to seriously celebrating my birthday. My birthday was sometime last month. I don't know when exactly in May it is, but actually celebrating it with something like a normal party sounds really neat."

"When the blackout's over, we can go get some ice cream or something," Zane said. "Or even better, we could go to that bakery that's open late and get a little cake and then we can take it back to the car and eat it."

"And get twelve candles to put in it?" I said hopefully. "Plus one for good luck?"

"Absolutely," Zane said. "This is going to be fun."

"Yeah," I said. I blushed a little. "I can't wait until I get my first kiss."

Zane made a face. "Oh brother, and you aren't even in heat…"

"Hey, I know that you're looking forward to your first kiss too," I said. "I've seen the way that you've been looking at some of these normal women. You want to have your first kiss as much as I want to have mine."

"How about we get it over with?" Zane suggested.

"Huh?" I said.

"I'll kiss you," Zane said.

"Um…okay," I said. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, at least until Zane leaned forward and kissed me on my lips. Wow. That was really…what would be the right word to describe it? It was all tingly and good and awesome and it just felt…wow. I looked atZane and saw that he was as stunned as I was."Wow."

"Yeah, that was—" Zane was cut off by the radio. We immediately stopped staring at each other and focused on what the newscaster was saying.

"We have a breaking story coming into the WBPY news desk," the newscaster said. "The cause of the nearly nationwide blackout that occurred almost an hour ago has now been determined. We have just learned that an electromagnetic pulse was set off by terrorists over the east coast and this pulse has permanently or at least temporarily knocked offline any and all electronic devices from video games to personal computers to major computerized corporate databases. Officials have given no timetable on which everything will be up and running again. No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for this act yet. I repeat, it has been confirmed that the blackout that occurred was caused by an electromagnetic pulse that was set off over the east coast by terrorists. If you have emergency generators, please use them wisely. Make sure that you are stocked up on batteries and bottled water and other—"

Zane looked worried as he shut off the radio and put it back into the duffel bag. "No electricity? Nothing for a long time?"

"I know," I said. I perked up. "Hey, that'll make it that much harder for Manticore to find us even if they have all those backup generators!"

"True," Zane said. He looked worried again. "It might make it harder for Zack to find us, thought." He shook his head again. "No, it won't. Zack would be able to find us eventually even if he was blindfolded and had one hand tied behind his back."

"Like the time you and Krit and Wayne actually had the balls to do that to him while he was sleeping before the bugle to wake us up that one morning back in September?" I said, giggling. "I thought Zack was going to murder you!"

"We would have gotten the other hand if Krit didn't get dust up his nose and sneeze practically right in Zack's ear and woken him up," Zane said proudly. I laughed, but then Zane yanked me to the side and a man rushed past us, breaking the window of the store that we were in front of and jumping into it. "Rena, we need to get out of here."

"You're right," I said, looking around and seeing other people running around, looting stores and causing general chaos. As much as I knew that Zane and I could handle ourselves, it was not smart of us to stick around. I picked up the duffle bag again and we headed back towards our car. I looked at the chaos around me and Zane and I exchanged a look. Maybe this was going to be worse than a simple blackout. Much worse.

TBC

More notes: I'm sorry if that sucked and I'm sorry it took me a little while to update. Shadow000, thanks for the great review! I did intentionally start out using present tense, but I guess out of habit I fell back into using the past tense. Sorry about that!


	11. Chapter 11: X5 511

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

X5-511's P.O.V.

It's been six months since I've seen my two best friends. I hope that 494 and 121 are okay. I couldn't believe why they'd gotten thrown in Psy Ops. It turned out that both 494 and 121 each have an identical twin and the two of them, 493 and 120, are in the same unit over in the Wyoming facility and on that night back in March, their unit decided to leave Manticore and they escaped. They actually left Manticore! Okay, one stayed behind and one was killed before they left the building and three more were killed before they could reach the perimeter fence and one more was recaptured after making it over the fence but was injured and died days later, but still! Twelve of them, a full two-thirds of the surviving members of their unit at the time they left, made it successfully over that perimeter fence. They've been beating it into our heads when we've got a spare moment between our own lessons about how the members of that unit who escaped or tried to escape were traitors to Manticore. To be honest, I don't care that much. They made their own decision. Maybe it was harder for them than it is for us here. Maybe Colonel Lydecker did something above and beyond the call of duty that spooked them into leaving. Who knows? Who cares? They're not my unit. I don't hate them or anything, but I'm not that willing to introduce myself to one of them if I meet them one day. I just don't care all that much. To me, they're just another unit.

I am worried about 494 and 121 once they get back here, though. 908 was not very happy about getting stuck in Psy Ops for three months and she was very quick to blame 494 and 121 once she got out. It makes no sense considering that neither of their twins were the commanding officer of that unit, but 908 had a tendency not to make sense some of the time. Not many people in our unit liked her to begin with and I think even fewer like her now. She's been a complete pain.

"107, I told you to stay in line! You are not to fall asleep standing on your feet! Only horses sleep on their feet. You are not a horse so that means that you will not act like one! Am I making myself clear?" she snapped.

"Ma'am yes ma'am!" 107 yelled.

"Attention! Director Marshall in presence!" she yelled. We stood to perfect attention in line as Director Marshall came into the gym, followed by 494 and 121. I managed to suppress that sigh of relief that came to my lips. They didn't look all bad.

"At ease, soldiers," he said. "I'm returning X5-494 and X5-121 to your unit. X5-494 is to retake his position as second-in-command. Both X5-494 and X5-121 have been cleared for active duty and I expect that they will not be treated any differently because of their twins' actions. They would not have been cleared if they were not fit in every way for active duty. Am I making myself clear?"

"Sir yes sir!"

"Good," Director Marshall said. "Your trainer for your martial arts class will be along shortly. Remain here until he arrives."

"Sir yes sir!"

"Good. 494 and 121, you may take your places with your unit." He turned around and left the gym.

"It's good to be back," 494 said.

"Yeah, great to have the brother and sister of a traitor back," 908 mumbled.

"Wow, 908, I have missed six months of training and yet I could hear that remark," 121 said. "I also heard the order that Director Marshall gave about not treating me and 494 differently because of what our twins in Wyoming did. Oh wait, you've always been a bitch. I'm sorry. I forgot all about that. I guess missing those six months affected me more than I thought they did." Whoa. If looks could kill, 121 would have died about ten different ways.

"I will not take any more of your crap, 121," 908 threatened. "If I hear one more remark like that from you again, I will personally make sure that you get sent right back to Psy Ops where you belong. Am I making myself clear?"

"Then I will go to Director Marshall and tell him that you violated a direct order," I said. "Then he'll send you back to Psy Ops and he'll probably strip you of command and give it to 494." 908 stiffened and I realized that I'd hit 908's sore spot. She didn't want to lose her spot as commanding officer. She liked being in charge but she knew that she wasn't the best at it. Not only that, but she would lose it to 494, who she didn't like too much before he was in Psy Ops for six months. She probably wouldn't have minded it too much if it had been 786 who would be next in line for C.O. 786 was one of the few people in the unit that still got along with 908 after 908's own return from Psy Ops.

"Fine," 908 grumbled.

"You don't have to take that, 908," 786 said. Oh, here we go now. "You outrank 511. Take advantage of that."

"I outrank you and I'm going to take advantage of that right now and I'm ordering you not to stir up any trouble," 494 said. "I don't care that you're 908's best friend and I don't care that you want to be second-in-command of the unit again. The only thing that I care about is what's good for the unit and what's good for the unit is for us to work together as a team again."

"So?" 786 said. "Why should I work with two traitors?"

"Hey! 494 and 121 are not traitors," I said. "They weren't the ones who busted out of the building. They never had any thoughts of leaving us behind. They're as good as soldiers as any of us and there's no reason to think any differently."

"Yeah? They've got the same DNA as those two traitors in that unit so that makes them traitors, too," 786 insisted. "Do the damn math."

"There's more to a person than DNA," I said. "Something could have happened in Wyoming. Who knows? The point is that if 494 and 121 had wanted to leave Manticore, they would have left Manticore. They are loyal, so they're here with us. They just went through six months of Psy Ops for us. Grow up, 786."

"You're only saying that because you're their friend," 786 said.

"I might be their friend and it looks like they could use one right now," I said. "What they don't need is someone like you trying to bring them down because you have self-esteem problems." Basic Psychology can be a person's best friend. That and the footsteps that I'm hearing outside the gym door.

"I do not have self-esteem problems, 511, and I'll say it again," 786 insisted. "494 and 121 are traitors because their twins were traitors and I refuse to work with them and I don't think that anybody should work with them. I think they're as worthless as their twins and they should be—"

"X5-786, that will be enough from you," the trainer snapped. 786's eyes widened. "I don't know if you are aware of the fact that I am aware of Director Marshall's order for 494 and 121 to not be treated any differently. You are in violation of a direct order and I am sending you to solitary confinement right now. How long you remain there is up to the director himself."

"Sir, I—" 786 still didn't get it. Unbelievable.

"786, I did not give you permission to speak! Do you just want to skip solitary confinement and go straight to Psychological Operations?!" the trainer snapped.

"Sir, no sir!" 786 yelled.

"That's more like it," the trainer said. He motioned for the guard that had followed him to the gym. "Escort X5-786 to solitary confinement and then inform Director Marshall that I need to speak to him when this class is over."

"Yes, sir," the guard said. He and 786 left.

"As you were, soldiers," the trainer said. We got back into line and stood at attention and listened as the trainer paced in front of us and went over what we were going to be doing in class. I looked over at my right at 494. He gave me a quick thumbs up. I glanced to my left at 121. She briefly smiled at me before focusing on the trainer again. I smiled to myself as I watched the trainer. I had my friends back with me. Things were going to be rough at least for a while, but maybe they'll return to normal soon. I'd hoped they'd return to normal, anyway.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12: X6 405

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

X6-405's P.O.V.

I sat patiently in the same waiting room in Psy Ops that I had been waiting in when Colonel Lydecker had first taken me here…how long ago was it? It couldn't have been more than one or two months…I think. However long it had been, I was finally going to be getting out. I'd had one last round of Manticore psych tests before they'd pronounced me ready for active duty again. I couldn't care less about what hell they were going to put me through day after day at that point, I just wanted to see my family again. I knew that they were worried about me. I had no worries about how they were doing. I had complete confidence in 115 to make sure that they were fine. Jace sat next to me. She had no clue that I knew her name and I didn't think that I should let her know.

"Glad to be getting out?" I said.

"Absolutely," she said. "I wonder which unit they'll be assigning me to since my old unit turned traitor and left."

That didn't sound good. "I don't know. I think at least two of the other X5 units were light by one or two soldiers before we got put in here. I think it was units 1 and 7. They always seemed like good units to me."

"Yeah," Jace agreed. "I wouldn't mind getting put into one of those units." We turned our heads towards the door when we heard footsteps and a few moments later, the door opened and Colonel Lydecker entered the room. We immediately jumped to our feet and saluted him.

"At ease, soldiers," he said. Jace and I immediately fell into the position. "I'm glad to be returning the two of you to active duty. Your continued loyalty to your home makes me and all of us very proud."

"Thank you, sir," we said.

"Follow me," Lydecker said. We followed him out of the door. I noticed that we weren't heading in the direction of the barracks.

"Sir, permission to speak?" I said.

"Granted," Lydecker said.

"Where are you taking us, sir?" I asked.

"Lecture hall 2," Lydecker replied. We reached the room before I could ask him any more questions and a guard opened the door and we went inside. "Stand next to the podium."

I stood next to Jace next to the podium and looked around and I was surprised. All of the X6 units as well as all of the remaining X5 units were sitting in the hall. I quickly found my own unit and gave them a quick smile. They all looked relieved and 115 gave me a thumbs-up. That was one thing off of my mind! Now I had to figure out how and when to get us all out of here.

"As you all know, it has been six months since the desertion of Manticore by the majority of X5 Unit 2," Lydecker said.

I was flat out shocked. Six months? I had been in Psy Ops for six whole months? That wasn't possible! How could I have been stuck in that hell for six whole months? Why had they put me in there for that long?

"You have all been briefed and updated on the situation," Lydecker said. "As of now, I am officially making it a standing order for any of you when you are out on a mission for those of you who are currently qualified to do so as well as those of you who aren't currently qualified, to notify command immediately if you see one of these rogue X5s.Of course, the mission that you would be on would always remain of the higher priority and should be accomplished first." He cleared his throat and then continued. "All X5 and X6 commanding officers, as well as X5-798, were taken to Psychological Operations for precautionary reindoctrination and evaluation after X5 Unit 2 left. X5-798 was kept in Psychological Operations for six months purely for precautionary reasons. While she was a member of X5 Unit 2, she remained loyal and did not make any attempt to leave after I had confronted the unit and warned them against it." Translation: after you killed a member of their unit in cold blood because she was doing the right thing, you monster. "X5-798 made the right decision. Remember that after I place 798 with her new unit. Do not treat her any differently from any other soldier. That is a direct order. Do I make myself clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" they all said.

"X6-405, commanding officer of X6 Unit 1, was also kept in Psychological Operations for a time of six months," Lydecker continued. "405 is one of our most promising soldiers and commanding officers. If she continues at the rate that she has been progressing so far, she will be a top candidate for commanding officer of our entire X6 group here in Gillette when we run those trials in ten years." His eyes hardened and he glared out at the others. I could see some of them shake a little bit, just enough for someone like me or Jace to notice. "405 was kept in Psychological Operations for that long as an example to all of you. If we put one of Manticore's best and brightest in there for six months only on a precaution, do not even _think_ that we will hesitate to punish any of you if you so much as show the slightest hint that you are falling out of line. Is that clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

I couldn't help feeling a little suspicious. Something about that didn't sound quite right. I might not have had as much training in psychological warfare and subterfuge as even the youngest X5s have had, but I still had the feeling that Lydecker was leaving something out about exactly why I was in Psy Ops for that long.

"You are all to return to your activities," Lydecker said. "X5-355, I need to speak to you before you leave the room. You may join up with your unit at your class after I am done." He turned to me. "405, you may return to and retake command of your unit. Report to Room 8 tomorrow at 0500 hours so that we may begin to catch you up on your training."

"Sir, yes sir!" I said. I saluted Lydecker and went up the rows of seats and met up with my family again. "It's been so long! I can't believe they kept me in there for that long."

"Neither can us," 115 said. "It's good to have you back again. Colonel Lydecker did put you back in command of the unit, right?"

"Right," I said. "So, did I miss anything important while I was in Psy Ops?"

"No," 691 said. "Nothing that I would deem as extraordinary happened while you were away from us. They were watching us extra closely for the first three months after that X5 unit left and then they loosened up a little bit."

"It wasn't anything we couldn't handle," 367 said. "We all worked really hard while you were away. We wanted to make you proud of us. You are proud, aren't you?"

"Of course I am," I said. "I'm always proud of you. So, what have they been saying about X5 Unit 2?"

"They're traitors," 367 said sadly. "I can't believe it. They seemed like they were so good."

"They were so nice to us, too," 773 added. "Remember how after they made us spar against them they had them help us with our martial arts? They never lost their patience with us, even when 956 had trouble getting that one move down."

"I don't get it," 570 said. "Why would they want to leave here? Isn't this our home?"

"Yeah," 392 said. "How could they leave?"

I looked around and I felt my heart sink. I could see it in their eyes. None of them wanted to leave. It wouldn't be fair of me to force them to escape with me. I'd also known what Lydecker would do to them if I'd left. They just threw me in Psy Ops for six months for reasons that I'm not completely sure about. What would they do to my family? I don't know how I managed to keep the tears from my eyes. I had to stay. I knew that I had to stay for them. I couldn't escape yet, not until they came to the same realizations that I had. I looked around the room and I caught Lydecker's eye and he gave me a look and it took every bit of willpower that I had to keep my jaw off of the floor. He knew. He could tell that I wanted to make a break for it somehow and he knew that my family wouldn't want to and he knew that I would stay behind for them. He knew that as much as I wanted to leave, I wouldn't. I couldn't leave. I felt my eyes harden and I glared at Lydecker and I was surprised to see him look so nervous that he almost looked scared. He should be nervous. He should be scared. The monster was essentially keeping me hostage here. You're going to regret this one day, Lydecker. One day, you will wish that you had never had Jack killed and that you never killed Eva and that you didn't have the guards kill the other members of that family that failed in their escape attempts. You're going to regret using my family to keep me in the place that I would like nothing more to be free from. I swear.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13: X5 205

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

Zane (X5-205)'s P.O.V.

"Why did we move, Zane?" Rena muttered as we sat inside a small restaurant. "I liked Virginia. I liked that whole D.C. area. Why did we have to move to stupid New Jersey? It's cold and it's rainy and it sucks."

"It's cold and rainy because it's the middle of October. Oh yeah, and in case you forgot about the soldiers that we saw in town who were most likely only on leave but we still shouldn't take a chance…" I reminded her.

Rena squinted in my direction. "Is there something wrong with my vision or maybe my hearing? I'm seeing your face but I'm hearing Zack talk out of his ass again."

"Nice," I said, snickering. I should be insulted, but I've got to give credit where credit is due. "If Zack were around, he'd kill you."

"He wouldn't," Rena said, smirking. "We're in public."

"That's right. As soon as there are no witnesses around, I will cause you serious physical harm."

Rena and I both jumped in our seats and turned around and there he was. I got up out of my seat and gave him a quick hug. "You're here! When did you get into town?"

"Yesterday," Zack said. "I saw you guys last night as I was looking around for a place to spend the night. I followed you until I saw where you're sleeping and then found a place to sleep of my own and I've been following you around all day." His face got serious. "You almost got caught already?"

"We didn't," Rena said. She gave me an annoyed look before she gave Zack a big hug and sat back down in her chair and waited for Zack to pull up a chair to our table and sit down before she continued to talk. "They didn't see us. If they did, they couldn't have noticed a thing wrong with us. Our barcodes were and still are burned off and we were behaving perfectly normal. We were just playing it safe."

"Good idea," Zack said.

"Are we the first ones that you've found so far?" I asked. "Have you found anybody else yet?"

Zack paused for a few moments. "I'd found one of us last week. I'm not saying who it was, but it was one member of a pairing that had been forced to split up after they'd gotten past the perimeter fence. You two are the first complete pair that I've found so far."

"What do you want to do?" I asked. "Are you going to move us again? Like Rena said, we really weren't spotted by those soldiers back in Virginia, but if you want to move us one more time just to be safe we understand."

"I'm not going to move you two," Zack said. "Not together."

Rena and I looked at each other and I felt my stomach drop. We knew that this was coming at some point. We'd all come up with the escape plan the night of Jack's death and we'd all agreed that after Zack had gone around and had found all of the pairs that he'd split them up and we'd all be on our own after that until it was safe to be together again. We knew that this was always going to be the plan and for some reason, I still didn't find myself prepared in the slightest way for it.

"Zack, are you sure that you want to do that?" Rena asked. She looked like she was close to crying.

"Rena, you know that's always been the plan," Zack said. "You and Zane can say good-bye, but I have to separate you two. I'm sorry. I really am sorry."

"I know," she said. She and I both stood up. "We'll be a minute or two." We walked over to a corner of the restaurant. "I guess this is it. Damn it, Zane, I didn't want to leave you this soon."

"Neither did I," I said. I grabbed Rena and pulled her into a hug. She hugged me back. I could hear and feel her sobbing. "Hey, we had a great time together. These last seven months have been great. Just remember all of the fun that we'd had."

"Like our first kiss," Rena said, dropping the volume of her voice low enough so Zack definitely wouldn't be able to hear her. "Zane, I—"

"It's okay," I said. "We're kids. We're supposed to have a first kiss." I couldn't help feel something nagging at me. Weren't we also supposed to eventually date too? Weren't we—for crying out loud, I'm only thirteen. I shouldn't be stressing out about that.

"Yeah," Rena said reluctantly. She gave me one last hug and then she dried her eyes and we turned and walked back to Zack. "I'm ready. What do you want to do?"

"We'll go back to where you and Zane have been sleeping and get whatever things that you'll need," Zack said. "Then the two of us will leave and then I'll come back for Zane and relocate him. I'll be back for Zane in about three days. I will not be telling either of you where I've relocated the other one. There will be no breach of op sec. I've got a cell phone number and voice mail account set up already. I'll give both of you the number once I've relocated you. Rena, we'll leave whenever you're ready."

Rena nodded and gave me one last hug. "I'll miss you, Zane."

"I'll miss you too, Rena," I said. I let go of her and turned to Zack. "It was great to see you again, bro."

Zack nodded. "It was good to see you too. I'll meet you here again in exactly three days. Be ready."

"I will be," I promised.

Zack nodded again and he and Rena left the restaurant. I sighed and sat down and buried my face in my hands and tried not to cry.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14: X5 452

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Wayne/X5-369, etc.).

Notes: This is the last chapter! Thanks again to everybody who's reviewed this so far. I still need help thinking of a grand finale for my fic "Together". If you have any ideas, click on the email link on my user page and let me know and I will give you credit in my notes on the next part of "Together" that I'll post after I get the email Thank you so much!

Max (X5-452)'s P.O.V.

I've been here in Nevada in this place called Henderson for a few months now. It's pretty good considering how everything got so chaotic since the Pulse happened back in May. Despite everything, there are still enough tourists going to Las Vegas so that a quick trip up there to pickpocket will get me at least a hundred dollars per trip. Not bad, huh?

I'm just sitting up here on top of this building that I found. I guess I still need a High Place. I should be letting go of anything and everything that had to do with Manticore, but the High Place didn't have to do with Manticore, it had to do with my family. There was no way that I was going to let go of anything that had to do with them. You couldn't make me do that for anything in the world.

I think about my brothers and sisters all of the time. I wish that I had been able to stick with Jondy instead of falling into that ice. I wish that Jace had decided to break out with us. Why did she change her mind? She was there with us when Lydecker killed Eva. She was there with us when I came back to our barracks and told everybody what Lydecker had done to Jack. Maybe Lydecker scared her into staying. I don't know and it looks like I won't get the opportunity to ask her why she stayed behind.

I miss everybody like crazy. Did all fifteen of us that got to the rendezvous point make it out? I hope we did. I know we did. We had to have all made it out. We all wanted to make it out too badly for us not to succeed. I want to have my family back together. We're all separated or maybe a few of us are together, depending on if Zack's found them or not, but I'll find them eventually. As soon as I get the opportunity, I'll go find them.

I sighed. I hated being by myself. I should probably make some friends and try to fit in, but that would most likely end me up with another foster family and I didn't want to repeat that experience again. I should go get some more Tryptophan, though. I wasn't able to get much the last time I had to get a refill. I hate taking medication but if these will keep my seizures away or at least keep them from being too bad, then I'll take them. I'd wished that they'd figured this out back at Manticore. Maybe they did figure this out already but they just wanted to wait until they had a more permanent solution for the seizures. If they had given us Tryptophan, though, would we have stayed? Would Jack have not had that last seizure and had not been dissected? Then again, maybe we wouldn't have stayed. Our life at Manticore was like a time bomb that was just waiting to go off. I think even if things had been different and Jack hadn't been dissected and had lived, something else would have happened and we still would have left at some point.

I sighed and stood up and started to climb back down the fire escape. Speaking of Tryptophan, I should get going. It was easier to get some of it in Las Vegas than it is here and the bus that I want to take into the city leaves the bus station in twenty minutes. I'm not far from the station but I still should get going. I jumped down the last three feet off of the fire escape and I checked to make sure that I had enough money for the bus before I walked down to the station. There were a few kids there. I should be glad that it's a weekend and kids are out of school so I don't look suspicious standing in public in broad daylight. I waited for the bus to pull up to the curb and I boarded it and gave the driver my money and a big smile. The driver smiled back and I went down and took a seat. There's an important lesson that I've learned since I've been on the Outside. Adults think kids are cute and harmless. Give them a big smile and they won't suspect a thing.

A noise behind me and to my right distracted me from the view outside of my window and I turned and saw a brother and a sister nagging each other and I smiled sadly and I turned back towards my window. The boy looked a little bit like Zack. It definitely wasn't him, but the boy physically resembled him just enough to make me sad again. I swore that I saw Zack last month. It was the weirdest thing. I was sitting on top of the building like I'd just been doing and I looked in the distance and I saw a boy about Zack's height standing around on the street a few blocks away. I was convinced that it was him so I ran, just barely slow enough to not be suspicious, and by the time I'd gotten to where I'd thought I'd seen him, Zack was gone. I looked all over town that day, but he was nowhere to be seen. It was the saddest I'd been since it first sunk in after the escape that I wouldn't be seeing my family for a long time, if ever again. It had to have been Zack! I knew my oldest brother better than any of my family and I knew that it was him. Why couldn't he have still been there by the time I was able to get down to him? I missed him so much!

I sighed and turned back to the brother and his sister. The sister had now fallen asleep and the brother was listening to a MP3 player. I smiled. Maybe I had missed Zack that one time, but the next time that I saw him, I would catch him. I'd see him and I'd let him know how much I've missed him. We'd be together again one day. Zack and me and Tinga and Jondy and everybody. We were meant to be a family and you can't keep apart what's meant to be. You just can't.

The end!


End file.
